


The Scars We Carry

by loveyou-x3000 (Severa)



Series: Scars [2]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime)
Genre: AU - InuParents Diaries, Angst, Angst and Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, InuParents - Freeform, InuYasha: Swords of an Honorable Ruler Expansion, Pre-Yashahime, Romance, Story within a Story, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:47:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 76,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26226637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/loveyou-x3000
Summary: Izayoi's diaries tell the story of her tragically fated romance.*Best Drama, Feudal Connection Awards, Q4 2020*
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Inu no Taishou & Sesshoumaru & Sesshoumaru's Mother, Inu no Taishou/Izayoi, Inu no Taishou/Sesshoumaru's Mother
Series: Scars [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894606
Comments: 137
Kudos: 238
Collections: Quarter 4 2020 Inuyasha Fandom Award Winners





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@heavenin--hell](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40heavenin--hell).



“If I cry, you’re not allowed to make fun of me.” Kagome insisted, settling back against the mountain of blankets and pillows her husband had piled together for her. 

InuYasha only grunted in response, shrugging. He picked at the remnants of his lunch, laying out on the floor in front of her with one knee bent up and his head propped up in his hand. 

“InuYasha.”

“All right, all right,” he waved his hand at her, dismissive. “I heard you.”

Barely satisfied, she could only roll her eyes. But she knew she couldn’t really blame him for his attitude. As much as he tried to hide it, she’d seen how anxious he’d gotten when she’d started sorting and arranging all the writings. This couldn’t be easy for him. She could sympathize– this made her anxious, too. Now that they were finally settling in to read, she felt like she was holding a small bomb in her hand. The dates on these journals had already sent her reeling – _these are fourteenth century; InuYasha has been alive since the_ ** _fourteenth century_** – and they hadn’t even scratched the surface. Neither of them had any idea what they could find between the pages of his Mother's past.

The thought had occurred to her that shattering the Jewel again would probably be less stressful than this. But there was no turning back now.

Kagome leaned back and gathered up all her courage, casting one final glance to her husband before she opened his mother's journal and began to read aloud.

* * *

It had happened very quickly.

One moment she had been rushing through a forest clearing to cross the last stretch of wilds between herself and her way home, and the next she hadn’t been moving at all. Something had pricked at her ankles – brambles and brush, she'd thought, or an insect bite _._ Nothing that would stop her from getting home before dark.

But then her leg had been pulled out from under her.

All while the world turned on its axis and the ground rushed up to meet her, Izayoi could only remember feeling numb before the skies turned dark. 

Memory served only as a murky blur after that. 

She remembered dreaming about a bed of white flowers, lying underneath the stars as a distant voice sang sweet songs. The lullaby was enough to keep her from caring about how heavy her body felt beneath the flower petals, or how distantly her thoughts seemed to drift as vines wound their tendrils around her limbs. She was content to lie there, to float between the melodies and drift away as the sun rose and set in the sky. Darkness came and went in a comforting ebb and flow.

By the time she realized she might not be dreaming, that the darkness wasn’t there to comfort her and she was about to drown in it, the petals around her had already turned blood red.

Someone started to scream.

And then the song stopped and the voice turned, tearing through her peaceful daze with an ear-splitting howl. The fog cleared in an instant and the heavy blanket of flowers no longer felt kind, their grip no longer soothing. She could feel every one of the vines that had torn into her skin and bled her, winding around every minuscule vein and twisting them up into its flowers. It was as if she’d been cut open and suspended over a fire, threaded apart in strings to bleed and dry. Lullabies had dulled the pain with a sweet numbness before, but now she was subject to an inferno in its absence.

Her body had become a demon’s flowerbed and she couldn’t even scream for help.

A different sort of darkness bore down on her, chasing away the agony as a silver light flashed underneath the blazing sun.

Next, there were voices.

_“...demon!”_

_“Waste your time…"_ it said, _"...and she’ll die.”_

There was something hard and unyielding pressed into her back, the edge of cool metal wedged against her spine. A rich voice spoke above her. Everything was both too close and too far away all at once, overwhelming what small scraps of consciousness she could keep.

_“...inside…”_

When she thought to complain about the armor jammed into her back, she’d already been laid down on something soft.

 _"Boil it,”_ that voice demanded. Someone placed a damp rag to her head and it felt the same as if alcohol had been poured into an open wound. She felt herself writhing against heavy hands that held her down. _"She’ll have a chance.”_

She struggled to open her eyes, but that rewarded her with only blurred surroundings. A figure in white and silver, standing tall behind the bodies that trapped her. A red flower in its hand, outstretched for someone else to take.

 _Demon,_ she remembered someone yelling, but her thoughts didn’t have time to gather themselves before those heavy hands hauled her up and poured a vile substance down her throat.

It burned like liquid fire until she was relieved of her consciousness.

She woke several days later to find herself in tatters.

It was one thing to suffer a demon and another to survive it. Her mind had healed quicker than her body, leaving her to bear witness to the damage that had been done.

According to her healers and the priestess, a demon in the form of a flower had tried to use her for its soil. It had grown into her, _literally_ , evidenced by the small, swollen wounds pockmarked up and down her limbs and across her torso. It had meant to kill her slowly, draining her of her life and blood in equal amounts. That was the way it survived: snaring prey and feeding off it for as long as it could, keeping it alive just long enough that the victim could survive for weeks or months as a steady food supply. 

They said she had been in the ground with it for nearly a week. Her dreams had merely been the small flashes of consciousness she'd managed to find while under its spell, all the while being buried further into the ground with every passing day.

“But,” her maids had said, gently changing her bandages for the second time that day, “A spirit of the forest found you. He saved you.”

“Not a spirit. A demon,” argued the other. 

“Demons don’t help humans.”

“Well, certainly looked demon to me.”

Izayoi remembered him. His voice; his arms underneath her. A flash of silver against the sunlight. 

As her wounds were slathered in that awful, pungent ointment that came before new bandages could be applied, Izayoi tried to clear her memories.

 _“Boil it,”_ that voice had said. There’d been a red flower in his hand, looking so much like the ones that had weighed her down. She could remember seeing black boots on the floor, glimpsed between the bodies of worried healers. White fabric and dark armor on his frame, its heavy metals gleaming against the candlelight. " _She’ll have a chance.”_

Indigo stripes marked his cheeks and a shock of silver hair cascaded down his back–

(Silver flashed across her vision and pain erupted as a spell was broken.)

_The white-haired demon._

She had seen him, before. There had always been demons roaming the forest– it had always been dangerous. Her incident wasn’t special. But the white-haired demon was the one that people knew of, far more so than of the minor flora demons and creatures of the wild.

She had only ever caught glimpses of him, but others from the town and the castle proper had seen him. A terrifying daiyoukai that hunted and fought others of his kind, rarely meddling with humans unless they meddled first. If provoked, it was said that he was capable of slaughtering entire human armies single-handed. The samurai gossiped that its sword carried the soul of a dead dragon. There were plenty of rumors that swirled around him, but the consensus was always the same: leave him be. Demons were fickle creatures. If it preferred, it could turn on any of them at any moment and all would fall to ruin.

And yet it had decided to save her.

_Why?_

That question was why she had gone back out into the wilds the moment that walking was no longer a momentous effort, setting off to return to the clearing where she had nearly died. 

_Why me?_

Still, Izayoi, the human daughter of a noble lord, didn’t know the first thing about hunting demons. Less still about tracking one. All she could do was return to the scene of her attack and hope that the white-haired demon might still be nearby. And if it were, that it would be willing to speak with her.

_I should thank him, shouldn’t I?_

It was a flimsy excuse for heading out into the forest this close to dusk, especially when she'd been forbidden to leave the castle town. She needed rest, the healers said. But the confines of her room were driving her mad. Hardly any of her wounds needed bandaging anymore and the poison burns had healed down to itchy, dry patches rather than the swollen red rashes they had been. She needed fresh air and movement, not more teas and ointments. Two weeks indoors had been enough.

Besides, people rarely noticed when she took off on her own. As long as she came back by nightfall, no one was ever any the wiser.

The sun had just started the steepest curve of its descent by the time she reached the clearing. The space seemed rather innocuous now, considering what had happened before. Not much had changed. The trees still stood just as tall and the shade from their boughs spackled the ground all the same, but there was one notable difference.

A large section of the forest floor had been burnt black.

It wasn’t the sort of destruction a fire would leave in its wake. It was as if something had been growing and died, left out to rot in the sun.

_Was this…?_

She held her right side with one hand, minding her deeper wounds as she knelt down to inspect the ruin. It was nothing more than a tangled mess of thin, fragile vines that had fractured and curled up like the legs of a dead spider. No flowers or white petals were left to be seen, but the roots remained; the blackened, gnarled tendrils that had crawled underneath her skin and wound about her, pinned her down, dragged her into its embrace and into her grave– _barbs and thorns sinking deep, blood spilling into soil and a fire taking her mind–_

Izayoi took a deep breath to steady herself, holding her ribs a bit tighter as she tried to ignore the phantom creeping beneath her skin. The deepest vine had struck between her ribs and was still healing, but every memory made it feel like there was something lodged there, writhing away. She knew it was no small miracle that her lungs hadn’t been punctured, but sometimes it still felt like she couldn't get enough air.

_Maybe they were right._

She shouldn’t have come. 

“Do you have a death wish?”

The voice shattered her thoughts, bringing her blinking back to reality. The sun had sunken quite low and her shadow was long across the ground, cast over the blackened remnants of her new nightmare and coming up short just before the darkness of the woods. 

Golden eyes stared back at her from the tree line.

_The demon._

Her breath left her breast in one fell swoop.

Towering far taller than any man she'd ever met, he leaned against the thick bark of a tree and watched her from the shade, eyes glistening in the orange light of dusk. He wore heavy armor, adorned with spikes that decorated both his chest and the wide, plated pauldrons that protected his shoulders and back. A mass of cream-colored fur fell from underneath the metal and cascaded down to his ankles, hanging off him in a way that made it appear weightless. He watched her with no apparent regard for their surroundings, arms crossed over his chest. She found herself staring at his hair, silver in color and tied into a high ponytail that managed to sweep down past his waist. With the way the fading sunlight gleamed against him, it was hard to believe he could be real.

“I…” she floundered, trying to gather her thoughts into words. What had he said to her?

He pushed off the tree in one graceful movement, eyes never leaving her as he began to cross the clearing. The sword on his back glistened as it passed into the light.

“Hm?” 

She could see his face now, no longer blurred by fever. The indigo stripes that had once obscured his face were now jagged markings that stretched across his cheekbones in perfect symmetry, struck across his face like lightning strikes in a storm.

"I..."

He was closer now. Close enough that she could see the magenta shade of his eyelids as he stepped through the charred corpse between them, vines crumbling to dust beneath his boots.

“Were you–" She swallowed past the lump in her throat and began to stand, moving as quickly as she could with her protesting wounds. He stopped short in front of her, expression indecipherable and flat. 

“Were you the one who saved me?” she finally managed to ask.

The demon nodded. There was something sharp about the way he looked at her, almost prying in nature. But everything about him was sharp, she thought; his armor, his sword, his claws, his jaw. His very presence. If she were wiser, she'd know that those thoughts were a warning. If she reached out to touch him, she risked being cut on his edges. He was dangerous.

So why wasn’t she afraid?

“What of it?” the demon wondered and Izayoi was thrown back into the forefront of her mind, blinking at how easy it was to get lost in her own thoughts. Her heart was pounding in her ears and he was still talking. “Do you mean to thank me?”

 _Yes,_ was her first thought, but something else came out of her mouth.

“I just want to know why.”

It wasn’t the proper way to respond, but it appeared to be the right thing to say. His passive regard melted away, morphing into something that looked rather like confusion. He opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it just as quickly, staring at her as if he had never seen a human woman before.

“Does it matter?” he wondered.

“To me.” She thought her heart might leap out of her chest, or at least slip out of the half-closed hole between her ribs. His silence spurred her to keep talking. "I... I was curious."

“A demon nearly devours you and you walk openly into another's jaws?” His expression was lingering between bewilderment and amusement, treading near skepticism. “For curiosity's sake?”

“You’re not going to hurt me.”

_Don't be an idiot, don't be an idiot–_

“I’m not?” Now it was plain amusement on his face, a soft sort of edge in his gaze.

_I'm an idiot._

“I wouldn't be standing here if you were, would I?”

If her heart didn't burst straight out of her chest, it would simply stop beating.

“Hm.” 

The demon cleared the space between them without any hint of a warning, looming over her as the beginnings of twilight cast the world in pink and purple light. She felt the air leave her chest in the same gust of wind that his movements made, but he never so much as touched her. Even as they stood mere inches apart, there was still an invisible wall separating them. The unspoken divide. 

He reached out and caught a single lock of her hair between his claws, drawing it out in the small space between them. She had to tip her face back to see him properly, barely clearing his chin with her height.

“You aren’t afraid?” he wondered. 

She was certainly feeling _something_ , but it wasn’t fear. 

“Should I be?”

 _Yes!_ her mind was screaming, but another part was too busy trying to catch her breath to care. She knew she was supposed to be afraid. Everything she had ever been told about demons said that she shouldn’t be this close to one, shouldn’t be speaking with him, but–

_But._

After years spent catching glimpses of him between the trees, she wanted to know more. Were the rumors true? Was that sword on his back the soul of a dragon? Why did he linger so close to human settlements? Did he truly seek out to kill his own kind? What was his world and what was his place in it? What could she see of it before it devoured her whole?

_Why did you save my life?_

She’d almost died and now the man that had saved her was standing before her, full of so many things she yearned to know.

“Any normal human would be," he mused, letting her hair slip free from between his claws. Each was tapered to a neat point, gleaming softly as they hovered near her cheek. When she met his gaze, it felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a cliff. “But I suppose a normal woman wouldn’t return to the spot she was eaten alive in, either.”

Then the moment broke as he swiftly stepped aside, walking past her and leaving her feeling bereft in the dwindling twilight. 

“Wait–”

Izayoi turned as quickly as she could, having to hold her side with both hands as her wounds screamed up her side. The demon kept walking, leaving her to stare at his back as he made his way towards the darkening forest.

“You should get home before dark, hime,” he called back. “Hungry demons wander the woods at night.”

“But you haven’t answered me.” She knew she wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. Her side was splitting and his strides were twice as long as her own. “You haven’t told me.”

His steps slowed until he stopped, lingering on the edge of the forest. 

“Told you why I saved you?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder towards her. A moment of silent thought passed between them, leaving her to wait. “Do you really want to know?”

 _No,_ some distant, smarter part of her knew.

“Yes.”

She saw him smirk before he turned his face away, continuing his exit into the darkness.

“Then come back tomorrow night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve set this very roughly in the 1300s for Izayoi and Toga, likely around 1330-1350. [This is based on the assertion that the events of Inu-Yasha take place in the Sengoku Jidai around 1540ish-1550ish](https://inu-fanon.tumblr.com/post/66527103547/what-year-does-the-series-take-place) and that the events in the opening of _Inu-Yasha: Swords of an Honorable Ruler_ take place 200 years prior (though the movies suck at being good references for exact years).
> 
> Take a look at a sketch from a very, VERY early draft of this chapter [here!](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/627746415067693057/carried-on-the-wind-excerpt) This scene ultimately got cut, but I still love it.
> 
>  _Hime_ :: princess or a lady of higher birth, "beautiful woman"  
>  _Daiyoukai_ :: high-level demon classification, "great demon"


	2. Chapter 2

_“Then come back tomorrow night.”_

Though she would be loath to admit it, his words kept her awake that night. After stealing back into the castle and slipping into her rooms unnoticed, she’d tossed and turned thinking about her encounter with a demon. 

Why hadn’t he just told her? Why wait for the next night? Where was the sense in any of this?

Maybe he was expecting her not to come. Maybe he figured she would lose her resolve after having a moment alone, which would likely be what any normal woman would do. But there was something about him that kept drawing her thoughts back to his face, to his voice and his golden eyes. 

_Of course there is,_ she tried to tell herself. _He’s a demon. Everything about him is meant to draw you in. You’re his prey._

She’d already had experience being prey. The flower demon’s lullabies had been just as sweet and tempting as the white-haired demon was to her now. They were both dangerous, both sharp. Every instinct told her to run as far away from him as she could.

But instead she was running towards him.

_Why?_

Slipping through the crack in the back castle wall, Izayoi took out into the wilds before any of the guards could see her from their high posts. Moonlight illuminated her path, breaking through the tree canopy in soft splashes of light. The more sensible part of her brain wondered if she were rushing to her death; the curious part kept her heart beating triple-time in her chest.

When she broke out into the clearing, she was already breathless.

And there he was, waiting for her.

The white-haired demon sat on the far side of the clearing, cushioned against the trunk of a tree with the massive furs that clung to his back. She could see the shape of his figure in the soft moonlight, darkened by the shade of the leaves above him. His eyes were closed.

When she took her next step forward, he spoke.

“You came.”

A night breeze rustled through her hair, her arms rising to wrap around her torso. She could feel the ridges of her bandages through three layers of kimono. Her maids had bound them tighter in a hopeful bid that the pressure might help stave off the pain.

“You thought I wouldn’t?” she guessed.

He opened his eyes, staring at her with veiled interest.

“I don’t know what I thought.”

He gathered himself in a few swift movements, straightening up and crossing the clearing to reach her. When he stopped he was just out of arm’s reach again, farther from her than he had been at the end of their last encounter. Izayoi stared up at him as he looked down, trying not to feel small under his intense gaze.

“So?” she asked, and his only answer was an expectantly arched eyebrow. “…You said you’d tell me.”

“Tell you what?” he asked, and Izayoi got the impression that he was being genuine. He didn’t appear so sharp or jagged to her anymore. Haloed against the moon, he was more ethereal than dangerous. Something to be followed rather than feared.

Had he really not expected her to come?

“Tell me why you saved me.”

_I want to know._

“Ah… well,” He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, rolling one of his shoulders absently. There was no mercy in his silence, leaving her waiting on a razor’s edge.

_Just tell me._

“Why not?”

If her brain could stumble, it just had, tripping over the echo of his words.

“Why not?” she repeated. It sounded so absurd. “ _Why not?_ ”

He shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. There was a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips, an expression that only flustered her more.

_Is he toying with me?_

“Is that not a good enough answer, hime?”

“I–” She couldn’t believe him. “No!”

He laughed and she realized she was right– he _was_ toying with her. Blatantly.

“What a shame.” He made a vague gesture with one hand, moving to leave again as he had the night before. “It’s the only answer I have.”

She was prepared this time, quick to turn and follow him under the stars.

“You tell me to come out here in the middle of the night, and that’s all you have to say?” she asked, looking up at him as he stared forward.

“I didn’t force you to come.”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he said, just as she managed to get out in front of him. He stopped short, looking at her with no small measure of surprise.

“I told you,” she said, realizing too late that it was a very bold move to cross into a demon’s path. “It matters to me.”

He loomed over her in his height, watching her stand in the shade of his own shadow.

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I never–”

“In fact,” he said, cutting her off with ease, “I rather think you’re the one who owes me.”

The night air suddenly felt heavier, all her boldness swept away with one simple sentence.

 _You’re in danger,_ her instincts warned. The demon had grown sharp again, no longer an ethereal spirit of the night. If she weren’t careful, she’d cut herself on his edges.

“Tell me why you want to know so badly,” he proposed, mercifully thoughtful, “And then we’ll see if I’m feeling generous.”

She refused to falter under his gaze, forcing down every nervous thought that bubbled up.

“I told you already,” she managed. “I was curious.”

“…Hm.”

He brushed by her, fading into shade of the tree line. She nearly called out for him to wait, turning where she stood— only to realize he was merely sitting back down, back and furs resting against the flat plane of a tree trunk. His sword remained in place, a stark, silver line that jutted out from behind his shoulders.

“Curiosity?” he asked. Carefully, she approached him. “You expect me to believe that?”

“As you expect me to believe you had no reason,” she countered, folding her legs underneath her to join him on the forest floor.

He tilted his head, considering her.

“Then what else are you curious about, hime?”

A breeze blew by, taking all her anxieties away with it. The danger, if there ever had been any, seemed to have passed.

She pressed down the wrinkles of her kimono, wondering if he was honestly asking.

“I’m curious about the flower,” she decided.

She had surprised him again. She could tell by the way he was looking at her, trying to pry into her thoughts when he couldn’t make sense of them.

“What about it?”

“Why did it attack me?”

“Hunger,” he answered flatly, reaching to draw his hair out from behind his back. It cascaded down his shoulder in one neat wave, shining softly in the night.

“What type of demon was it?” she continued, slowly growing more comfortable in his presence. “I mean, I know it was a flower, but… it sang to me.”

“You heard the voice of its Master. Dead now," he added quickly, realizing that he might've startled her, "But all demons have a voice, even if they lack a body.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “What I said. If it’s demonic, it has a voice.”

Izayoi wondered how bold she could be.

“Even demon swords?”

He blinked, casting her a strange look. Trying to pry again, she thought; wondering how she could be so bold. It wouldn't be a lie to say she was perplexed by her own boldness as well.

If he ever found his answers, he didn’t share them.

“Even demon swords,” he repeated instead, and did not elaborate. He turned his face from her. “Move on.”

Braver now, she leaned to one side to sit on her thigh in the grass, folding her legs more casually beside her.

“I’m curious about you.”

“Oh?” His eyes flicked back to her, plainly intrigued. Teasing, almost. 

“Yes,” she nodded, choosing her words carefully as she navigated through dangerous territory, “...What’s your name?”

“My name?” 

It was a strange question to take so seriously, but he did anyway, lacing his fingers between his bent knees. The shine of his claws caught her attention, their points tapered to the same razor edges she remembered from the night before. Her hair, slipping between his fingers…

“What’s yours, hime?” he countered.

Her eyes darted away from his hands to meet his gaze.

“Izayoi,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation, compelled to give him her first name. “Will you not tell me yours?”

“I have many,” he said, evading her yet again, “Which would you like?”

“Whichever one you hate least.”

He chuckled, considering her response. Another small moment of silence passed, a pattern in his speech that she was starting to catch onto. He didn’t speak without weighing his words.

“…Call me Toga,” he decided. “Beware anyone who calls me anything else.”

 _What the hell does that mean,_ she wanted to ask, but settled for something less intrusive. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

Her chest ached a little and she shifted, pressing her palm into the ground beside her to relieve some of the pressure.

“Why is it that you’re here?” he asked again, watching her hand settle between the blades of grass. “Truly?”

“My answer won’t change,” she insisted, “Is it that hard to believe I’m curious?”

“Hard to understand, perhaps.”

“Why?”

“Because any sensible human would fear me.”

“Well, in my experience,” her free arm floated up to wrap around her torso, following the path of the bandages beneath her clothes, “Any sensible demon would devour me. Yet, here we are.”

“Here we are,” he repeated, thoughtful. His eyes lingered over her arm for a time before they flicked back up to her face, curious now. “You don’t intend to leave this be.”

“Not yet,” she admitted, smiling a little, “Not until you tell me why.”

“And if I never do?”

“You will.”

“How do you know?” he challenged.

“Because you’re still here.”

Not wanting to press her luck any farther, Izayoi gathered herself up to stand, moving very slowly. Given a week or so her wounds would be sealed, but until then she was left to suffer it.

Another breeze passed her by and then then there was a hand on her back and another under her arm, easing her up to her feet. Her heart jumped up to her throat as Toga stared down at her, helping her to stand with a gentle touch. There they were again, inches apart from one another.

“Your healing will be slow,” he said, his hand lingering too long over the small of her back. “You should be more careful.”

“Oh,” was all she could think to say. “I… Yes.”

“Hm.” 

His hands fell away from her, leaving her bereft. The phantom sensations of his touch still lingered through her kimono: the warmth of his fingers, his gentle hand, and the slight sharpness of his claws against her back.

“Will you be here if I come looking?” she wondered.

Toga blinked, perplexed again.

“What is it you would want from me if I were?” he asked, doing a poor job of hiding his confusion. “What more could you possibly want to know?”

It seemed like a silly question to her.

“Everything.”


	3. Chapter 3

Toga still refused to tell her why he’d saved her life, but he was there when she came looking for him again. It had been about a week since they'd last met.

“Tell me about the forest,” she asked softly. Tonight her ribs hurt a little less, the wounds nearly closed, but he’d still been quick to have her sit with him under the trees. The skies hadn't grown dark yet, but twilight was dwindling. She couldn't stay long.

“What about it?”

He wasn’t wearing his armor this time, the heavy metal plating discarded in a pile near his side. But the furs and the sword were still on his back, a thin strap drawn over his chest to hold the scabbard in place. Somehow, it didn’t make him look any smaller.

“Why do you live in it?”

“I don’t,” he said plainly, “It’s a part of my territory.”

“Demons have territories?”

“Of a sort,” he nodded. “The same way as your human daimyo claim land.”

“Does that mean you’re a daimyo?” she wondered. “Do demons have daimyo?”

He chuckled, considering the idea. “Not in the way you know them.”

“In what way, then?”

He sighed, looking towards her. “Always curious, aren’t you?”

“I warned you,” she pointed out, drawing her knees up closer beside her body. It was a rather improper way to sit, leaning to her side on one arm, but Toga was lounging just as casually with his legs folded in front of him. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Suppose I don’t. What would you ask next?”

“What other demons reside in your territory?” she tried, “The samurai say you fight your own kind.”

He scoffed. “My own kind fight me. There’s a difference.”

“What’s the difference?”

He thought about the question for a moment before answering.

“Demons don’t have daimyo, no,” he explained, linking the two questions. “If you want power, you challenge those more powerful than you and take what’s theirs.” 

“So… you’re more powerful than them?” she gathered. She couldn’t help the way her gaze drifted over to the sword on his back. “They challenge you?”

“Yes.”

“For that?”

He spotted where she was looking and turned his head away, dismissive.

“Sometimes.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

“No.”

Stopped before she’d even started, Izayoi knew it was better to leave the subject alone. The situation was already precarious enough without her prying into things he didn’t want to talk about.

“Well,” she thought, sifting through her endless questions, “Is there no one left for you to challenge?” 

His mood shifted back to something more amicable, some amusement in his eyes when his gaze returned to her.

“Very few.” He set his chin in his hand, arm propped up against one of his bent knees. His sleeve slipped back with the movement, revealing a stretch of indigo cutting across his forearm. It matched the striped markings on his face. “Not worth the trouble.”

“Really?”

“Something interesting about that?” he wondered, and she realized with a flash of embarrassment that he’d caught her staring at his arm. 

“I– maybe,” she muttered, looking away from him to hide the slight flush to her cheeks. It spared her from having to see his face, but he was kind enough not to tease her further. Though he made no efforts to hide his amusement.

“Tell me why you find the demon world so interesting, Izayoi,” he prompted, giving her a small reprieve from her embarrassment.

“I don’t.”

“Oh?”

The words left her mouth before she could stop them.

“I find you interesting.”

One simple sentence hung in the air between them, making the world feel heavy again. 

_Idiot._

It wasn’t a lie. Demons weren’t what drew her into the wilds. She knew, as any rational person would, that the risk of encountering demonkind wasn’t worth the reward. That lesson had been handed to her on a silver platter, evidenced by her own still-healing wounds, but…

_He’s different._

She’d had a hundred glimpses of a white-haired demon on the edge of the orchards; heard a thousand rumors about a creature who lingered between worlds and paid allegiance to no one. He killed demons and saved humans. The soul of a dragon rested in the palm of his hands.

He was the man who’d saved her life and refused to tell her why.

Izayoi eventually found enough courage to look back at him, wondering if she’d gone too far.

“I see.”

His expression had fallen flat, retreating behind a mask she was growing used to seeing. But there was something more there. Something he tried to hide by turning his face away from her and rising to his feet, reaching down to take the pieces of his armor in hand. 

Izayoi watched him dress, heavy pieces of metal hefted onto his body with ease and tied into place in a practiced ritual.

“Toga?”

He pulled his hair out from where it had gotten trapped beneath his cuirass, whipping it back over his shoulder. The spikes of his armor gleamed against the dying sunlight as he fastened his vambraces.

“Yes?”

She gathered herself up as well, leaning on the tree for support to straighten up. 

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she said carefully, feeling as though she were walking on eggshells.

“You didn’t,” he assured her, adjusting the long sword across his back. Its gemstone pommel seemed to shine as he spoke. “You made me realize something.”

“What?”

When he finally looked back to her, his thoughts seemed distant. 

“How dangerous you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Daimyo_ :: (in feudal Japan) one of the great lords who were vassals of the shogun.
> 
> Chapter is very, very loosely based around [this comic.](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/620112799355502592/heaveninhell-dont-ask-things-you-dont-need-to)


	4. Chapter 4

Dangerous or not, he was the one that sought her out next. 

Two weeks had passed since they had last seen each other, giving Izayoi the time she needed to heal. Not that the healing had been enjoyable. In the end it left her with long stretches of angry, dry skin that seemed irritated by the slightest exposure to the sun, forcing her to keep her long layers even in the summer heat. Perhaps she was fortunate that her face and hands hadn’t been marred, but that was little comfort. The scars were still there, dented into a body that had once been unmarked. She found herself pulling at the collar of her kimono often, making sure the angry redness that spread across her chest was always kept out of sight.

Not that there was anyone who would see them.

Today she roamed the orchards just outside the castle, oblivious to her surroundings while in broad daylight. She had no reason to be wary. The only demon that ever wandered this close to the castle was Toga, and even then only in passing. She was well within the sights of the samurai who manned the castle walls. There was nothing to fear.

Her thoughts drifted as she walked through the trees, her basket half-full on her hip. Searching for Toga these past few nights had proven futile, leaving her with her unsettled thoughts from their last parting words.

_How am I dangerous?_

It didn’t make any sense to her. He hadn’t been inclined to elaborate, either, telling her to return home before she was noticed missing and then disappearing off into the forest. 

She chewed on the inside of her lip as she thought, reaching up to pluck an apple from a comfortably low-hanging branch. Did he not want to see her anymore?

A soft breeze passed through her fingers and she blinked the world back into focus, suddenly realizing that the apple she’d been reaching for had disappeared. 

_Where...?_

Then she felt something at her back, a shadow falling over her shoulder as a voice brushed across her ear.

“Scared yet?” Toga whispered, and Izayoi’s hand went slack around her basket.

He was kind enough to catch it before it fell and scattered its contents across the ground, chuckling as he pulled back and away from her. Her mouth kept opening and closing unintelligently, heart stopped cold in her chest. 

_You!_

Eventually, her brain remembered how to function.

“Toga!” 

It was more a chastisement than a greeting. 

“You should be more aware of your surroundings,” he advised, taking a bite of the apple he’d stolen from her. Amusement played across his features. “Something bad could happen.”

“Oh, really?” she huffed, composing herself enough to steal her basket back. He let it go with a chuckle. “I thought I was the dangerous one.”

Toga shrugged, turning the apple in his fingers before taking another bite. He wiped a droplet of juice away from his mouth in the heel of his palm, the metal plating across the back of his hand blocking more natural gestures. 

“That depends.”

She sighed, balancing the basket against her hip. Now sorted, she was suddenly more aware of their surroundings– as he’d advised her to be. They weren’t alone. Her maidservants were somewhere nearby, she knew, but she was more worried about the guards on the castle walls. It wouldn’t be hard to spot them between the trees from their high vantage points.

“They won’t notice us,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “They’re not the ones you should worry about, anyway.”

“Who should I worry about, then?” she asked, watching him toss his apple core aside. “Are you going to assault me in broad daylight?”

He pushed off the tree, shrugging.

“No,” he said smoothly, rolling his shoulders and the armor plating with them. He cracked his neck against his palm. “But I am going to kidnap you.”

Her eyes shot open wide. 

“Wha _–?!_ ”

But it was too late. Apples spilled across the ground as the basket fell out of her hands, knocked aside when he trapped her waist in his arm and swept her legs out from under her with the other, hooking her knees over his forearm. 

“You can scream,” he offered, as if that were the chivalrous thing to say.

She might’ve, but there was no air left in her lungs when he leapt above the tree canopy. Her hands scrambled against him, clutching for anything she could hold onto as he held her against his chest and careened into the sky, soaring over the orchards.

In full view of everyone and everything.

The cacophony of chaos that followed from the castle was lost to her, whipped away on the wind as they shot off in an impossibly long arch. Izayoi’s knuckles were bone white around the rim of his armor, her heart in her throat as she saw the world grow small underneath her. 

_What the hell?_

She pressed herself against him, terrified of the prospect of falling.

“Finally afraid?” he wondered, looking down to her. The bastard was smiling. 

_Gods damn you, you sonofa–_

She tucked her head against his armor to protect her face from the wind, clinging to him like a sailor on a lifeline. Yes, she was terrified. Not of him, but of the distance between her feet and the ground.

_I’m going to be sick._

They began to fall back towards earth and her stomach dropped, rolling over a few times for good measure. She braced herself for impact, clenching her eyes completely shut and wanting to disappear into his armor, to be anywhere but here. Maybe she was healed but she definitely wasn’t ready for this–

The impact never came. 

Instead the world moved over them the same way that a tide took over a beach– rushing in and holding at its crest, only to escape back out into the open sea. He met the ground in the same way, a rush of gravity pressing down on both of them and holding, _cresting_ , until the momentum built and he released it in another great leap. There was only that single heavy second in between landing and soaring before the trees were beneath his feet again.

If anything, it just made her hold on tighter.

“Relax, woman,” he chuckled, looking down on her as the clouds sped by above his head. “I’m not going to drop you.”

Izayoi managed to open her eyes, barely able to look at him without feeling nauseous. 

“Where the hell are we going?”

He barked a laugh, looking forward again. He pulled her in closer to his chest, though there honestly wasn’t much farther to go without flattening her.

“Such language.”

“Toga–”

“I told you, I’m kidnapping you.”

She had a bold urge to hit her fist on his chest, but there was no prying her hand away from his armor. Her other arm, having looped around his neck at some unknown moment, was far too close to the spikes on his armor to safely try and maneuver freely.

“Toga,” she repeated instead, swallowing hard as their second descent began. “Please.”

He chuckled. Izayoi vaguely recognized that they seemed to be moving slower this time, more in an assisted descent than an outright freefall. 

“You asked me about my world,” he relented, stretching his legs out straight as the ground rose up to meet them once more. “I’m just making sure you know what you’re asking for.”

When he touched down on the ground it was in a proper, graceful landing. Izayoi finally remembered how to breathe properly.

“And don’t worry,” he teased, easily putting her feet back underneath her. “The ransom I’m asking for isn’t high.”

Slightly unsteady and more than a little out of sorts, she didn’t immediately release her hold on him. He let her stay there for a moment before trying to catch her attention.

“Izayoi?” The hand on her waist gave a curious squeeze. “Are you all right?”

She jolted a little, her soul seeming to catch up with her physical body when he said her name.

“Am I all right?” she demanded too loudly, surprising him a bit. She ripped her fingers from his armor – her knuckles were locked at the joints, sore from how tightly she’d been clinging to him – and pulled her other arm out from around his neck, stumbling back a bit. He let her go. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Toga chuckled, pulling his armor back into place with open amusement.

“I won’t repeat myself again.”

“Ransom?” she kept on, not actually caring what he had to say. “Are you–? Where are we?”

“Nowhere, yet.”

A ridiculous urge to punch him came to mind. Luckily, she was more sensible than that.

“I can’t believe you.”

“Why not? You barely know me,” he pointed out, smirking. “I thought you were the one who wanted to know more.”

This gave her pause, finally settling her nerves. 

“What do you mean?”

“I have things to do, and you can’t be trusted not to run towards the first demon you see.” Before she could take offense, he started walking, gesturing for her to follow him up the mountain path they’d been standing in the middle of. “So you’re going to accompany me.”

“Accompany you?” Caught hook and line, she didn’t even pause to question if it was wise to follow along. Quickening her pace to catch up with him, she trailed behind only slightly due to his inconsiderately long strides. “Where?”

“Wherever I please.”

“Toga.”

“A human village,” he allowed, clearly enjoying needling her. “Overrun by a demon.”

“What sort of demon?”

“Why spoil the surprise?”

She frowned softly and he chuckled, amused. 

“Do you mean to challenge it?” she asked instead, busying herself with fixing the layers of her kimono and flattening her hair down from the mess the wind had made of it. 

He shook his head. “It would be unnecessary.”

“Then what?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“Will you tell me anything?” she pressed. “You did just kidnap me, you owe me that much.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re the only one here who owes anyone anything.”

“I think we’re even now that you _stole_ me.”

“I do intend to return you, you know,” he chuckled. 

“For a ransom.”

“Perhaps.” He brushed his hand through his bangs, scratching the base of his ponytail. “Now, you can either keep asking pointless questions or you can try asking something worth talking about.”

She made a face, shaking her head at him. It was hard to be upset with him, though. He was being pleasant with her – kidnapping aside – and the day was nice enough, the shade of the forest making the heat of the summer sun bearable. Walking openly together had its charms.

“Fine,” she relented, reaching back to gather her hair and pull it long over one shoulder. It gave her neck some minor relief from the humidity. “What’s my ransom?”

He looked down at her and then away, slipping one of his hands beneath the metal of his opposite vambrace to fish for something. 

“If you had to guess?” he ventured, slowing his pace until he stopped. Izayoi slowed with him, considering the question as he pulled a thin, short cord out from underneath his armor. 

“I can’t imagine you want money,” she started, but then his hand was on her shoulder and he was turning her around without so much as an explanation. “What are you–?”

“Your hair,” he answered, but failed to give any more context until she felt his fingers comb through the strands, gathering its length in easy loops. The tips of his claws skated gently through them. “Forgive me.”

_What?_

It took her a moment, but she realized he was pulling it up off her shoulders and neck and gathering it, tying it up with practiced ease. For as improper as this was, all she could think about was how grateful she was that he couldn’t see her face. The growing warmth in her cheeks wasn't from the summer heat.

“We’ll be traveling for a while,” he was saying. “And you’re right. Your money means nothing to me.”

She bit her bottom lip, forcing her mind to get back on its path. Focusing on the way his hands felt in her hair would do her absolutely no favors, he was supposed to be a dangerous demon lord, not–

_Not this._

“...Then what?” she managed, proud of how her voice didn’t shake. “I can’t imagine my family has anything you’d want.”

“Correct.” There was some movement behind her again, the soft _clank_ of armor sliding over armor. She could feel her hair being wound around something, then tucked securely into place with what felt like a hair pin. “But you may.”

He placed his hand on her shoulder to let her know he’d finished, allowing her to turn back towards him. Her hands rose up to her hair almost immediately, feeling the heavy twist he’d bundled it into. It didn’t feel messy or knotted, which she supposed made sense; his hair was likely as long as hers. He had to know how to manage it. From what she could tell he had styled with a cord and kanzashi, though the latter didn’t feel delicate or ornamental. It was smooth to the touch, likely no more than a polished, sturdy hairstick. Absently, she wondered what it looked like.

“I… Thank you.” Then she realized what he’d said. “Me? I have to pay my own ransom?”

He chuckled, resuming their walk with a shrug.

“Maybe.”

It was like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be kind to her or if he wanted to torment her. She huffed, keeping up with his stride.

“I don’t have anything to give.”

“You have plenty to give,” he assured her, apparently unperturbed by how improper that sounded. Her cheeks reignited in a blush.

“That–”

“Don’t worry,” he cut her off gently, noticing how he’d flustered her. “I don’t take things that aren’t given freely.”

Somehow, that sentiment only added to her embarrassment. She had never met a more ridiculous man in her life. How could someone be so sharp and soft at the same time? Say such kind, polite things and then go off being so ludicrous? 

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” she decided to say, getting used to his whiplash attitude, “but that’s generally not how ransoms work.”

He barked a laugh. “Familiar with ransoms, are you?”

“Familiar enough.” 

Izayoi let silence fall for a moment, looking around at their surroundings. The endless trees didn’t give her much clue to where she’d ended up. Forests all tended to look the same once you were deep enough inside them.

“Is this still your territory?”

“Why?”

“Can’t you ever answer a question plainly?” she asked, giving him a long look.

“Yes,” he said, voice purposefully flat. Izayoi resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“You’re unbelievable.”

He laughed softly.

“So you’ve said.” Taking the hint, he answered her question. “We are at the moment, but we’ll be crossing out of it by dusk.”

“Dusk?” she asked, surprised. 

“I told you we’d be traveling for a while.”

“No, I know, it’s just…” she crossed her arms, absently rubbing at one of the many scars beneath her kimono. “They’ll be worrying.”

Toga thought about her words.

“Your family?” he guessed.

Not her family, exactly, but it was an adequate explanation. She didn’t have parents nearby to worry over her –as daimyo, her Father spent most of his time in Kyoto, and her Mother had died many years ago– but the samurai and the shugodai certainly would. Then word would eventually reach her Uncle at his estates and everything would roll downhill from there.

“Yes.”

“Izayoi,” Toga said gently, catching her attention. When she looked up to him, his gaze was soft again. “I meant it when I said I intended to return you home. Ransom or no.”

Stupidly, she trusted him.

“I know.”

* * *

Kagome paused on the page, looking down at where InuYasha lay shirtless with her in bed. He had his head down by her belly while she propped herself up on pillows, absently rubbing circles across its underside. The baby’s back was curled up there at the moment, likely fast asleep.

“You have other family?” she wondered, gently lacing her fingers into his hair. His ears swiveled towards her voice.

“Yeah,” he grunted, then yawned. “Did, anyway.”

She felt a pang of guilt at the past tense, having to remind herself that all the people she was reading about were long gone. 

“You knew them?”

“Little bit.” He shrugged and lifted his head up, leaning his cheek into his fist. “Doesn’t matter. Been dead a long time.”

The baby fluttered under his touch and he smiled softly, lovingly pressing his thumb against Kagome’s skin. 

“You should get some rest,” he suggested, reaching up and snatching the paper book out of her hands. He tossed it into the open box beside their bed. “We can finish it later.”

A part of her wanted to keep reading, but Kagome knew he was right. They’d been doing this for almost a week now, settling down for the night to read before bed. She would go through a journal entry and InuYasha would try and calm the baby down while he listened, lulling them both with gentle touches and soft attentions. It was a nice way to end the day. 

“All right.”

He helped her lay down, pulling pillows aside –both from this century and her own– to get her comfortable for the night. Ever closer to the nine-month mark, her stomach was more of a hindrance than a functional part of her body. But he was always there to try and make her feel better, ever-present and overprotective.

“You good?” he wondered, taking his usual place at her back and slipping his arm under her neck. She nuzzled against his bicep as he pulled the blankets up over them.

“Yeah.”

“You sure? I can–”

“InuYasha.”

He tossed the robe of the fire rat over her and their growing child, grumbling and kissing her shoulder.

“All right, all right. Geez.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Kanzashi_ :: hair ornament (general term)  
>  _[Shugodai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugodai)_ :: representatives of provincial _shugo_ (governors) and/or _daimyo_ (lords) when the resident authority was away
> 
> See an illustration of the opening scene by @heavenin--hell: ["But I'm going to kidnap you."](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/628353232251518976/the-scars-we-carry-chapter-4)  
>  _she's so amazing please go check her out, her art will kill me one of these days i just can't even express how grateful I am, please go show her some love (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤_


	5. Chapter 5

Luckily, the mountain trail that they followed wasn’t too treacherous. Toga always stopped to help her over or around obstacles, offering his hand out to her freely at any opportunity. He answered her questions – or dodged them – and stopped frequently so she could rest, giving her water from a flask he kept in his armor. 

Her hair never once fell from its bundle on the back of her head.

“Here,” he finally said, just as dusk was beginning to color the sky. Izayoi looked up, breaking out of the fog of her thoughts. “Just in time.”

The trail emptied out onto the crest of a hill, stretching beyond them in a winding path that led down into a small mountain valley. It was beautiful at first sight: there, between steep mountain slopes and rolling hills, a sizeable village lay, rich with green vegetation and tall trees. Small huts and larger homes peppered the landscape on either side of a wide, shallow river, separated by large stretches of farmland around its farthest edges until the roads narrowed, the center of the village built up in a more compact manner. Finer residences were nestled between the trees of higher hills at the opposite end of the valley, overlooking what must be their purview. 

It was quiet and serene, but Izayoi was unable to shake the unsettling sensation prickling beneath her skin. Tugging absently at the collar of her kimono to try and stifle her crawling scars, she came to a stop at Toga’s side at the edge of the hillside. His attention was elsewhere and she did her best not to interrupt it, knowing he could see and hear more than she could ever hope to. 

The silence felt stifling as she tugged at the hem of her sleeves next, growing more uncomfortable by the moment. Her skin refused to settle. Self-conscious enough that she wasn’t ready to resort to itching, Izayoi settled for pressing her hands over her sleeves in some hope the pressure might relieve her discomfort.

Toga stood perfectly still, waiting for something in their silence.

Gods, was it quiet.

On a pleasant summer evening like this, the forest should be alive with the sounds of insects and rustling creatures. A cacophony of birdsong and cicadas was to be expected. Just before nightfall, the wilds were meant to give their noisy farewell to the day. 

But there was nothing.

“Why is it so quiet?” Instinct kept her voice hushed, the silence around them suddenly deafening.

“Noticed, did you?” Toga hummed. His eyes never left the scene below them. “What else?”

She looked where he did, trying to follow where his questions were leading.

“The fields are empty,” she realized. Where there should be farm animals and their handlers, there were none; only stretches of uninterrupted grass. Empty huts and unlit lanterns. “There’s… no one.”

Inexplicably, he crouched down, flinging his arm around her shoulders with no warning and bringing her with him. Where he managed to lower and balance his entire weight on just his toes with absolutely no effort at all, she fell with far less grace, folding down to her knees in a pile of fabric. He leaned forward and forced her with him, trying to direct her attention down the path.

“What else?” he prompted again, “What do you see?”

What she saw was the hard curve of his jaw and the jagged indigo stripe stretching down his cheek, her eyes drifting over the sharp lines and shadows of his throat that stretched down to places she couldn’t reach. His entire presence draped over her was heavy, nearly oppressive, weighing her down like a winter blanket. She swallowed hard, unable to understand how he was so unabashedly shameless. 

“Just there,” he was saying, and Izayoi managed to tear his eyes away from him to look where he was pointing.

It was nothing more than an empty stretch of dirt road, perhaps halfway down the hillside. Clusters of trees stood tall on either side of it, perhaps twelve meters away from the beginning of farmland. But at his insistence - at her own strange desire to impress him - she saw what had been so blatantly obvious to him.

The air was shimmering.

Her eyes widened as she finally noticed the blurry edges of this village. Something hung in the air between her and it, invisible waves wavering like heat on a hot summer’s day.

“What is that?” she breathed. 

“A demon’s barrier.” He sounded satisfied with her discovery, letting his arm fall away from her shoulders. It left her feeling uneasily lightweight. “Concealing what lies within.”

Straightening up with impossible ease, Toga looked down to her and extended his hand for the hundredth time.

But for the first time that day, she neglected to accept his offer, gathering herself on her own and rising to her feet. It seemed silly to reject him after a whole day of taking his hands over rocky terrain and rivers, but there was a soft pang of nervousness to reach _up_ to him. A petty, vain fear that her kimono sleeve might slip and expose the angry skin underneath. Not that he would care– not that _she_ should care. But alas, vanity won out over her manners.

His brow crinkled slightly, but he let his hand fall without comment, looking back over the village and its barrier.

“Are you certain you want to come with me? I can leave you here, if you like.”

“No!" she said too quickly, suddenly aware that she might’ve offended him by refusing his hand. “No, I– I’d like to go with you.”

He nodded, the creases of his expression smoothing out. Still, he seemed hesitant. Something was on his mind. 

“As you wish,” he murmured, apparently dismissing his thoughts.

They continued down the path together, not speaking as they approached the edge of the barrier. The closer they got the more Izayoi’s skin crawled, her deeper scars prodding with insistent, uncomfortable pangs of distant pain. It was only the echo of suffering, but it was present enough that it kept her from her usual curious questions. 

If Toga noticed, he didn’t say anything. When they reached the barrier he stopped again, looking over his shoulder at her. His eyes spoke clearly enough: _are you certain?_

“You’re the one who brought me here, you know,” she pointed out, wrapping her arms around herself and trying her very best not to make it obvious how hard she pressed into her skin. “If you don’t want me to go–”

“No. You need to understand.”

His words stopped her short in one fell swoop. The sun had fallen far now, coloring the sky behind him in deep reds and oranges, making his eyes seem to shimmer when he turned from her again, the light reflecting unnaturally against gold. Yet again she was reminded that he was not natural– that she should not be this comfortable with him. He could turn on her at any moment.

_You’re only alive because he doesn’t want to kill you._ she reminded herself. It was impossible to know if or when his whims would ever change, despite her own ridiculous trust in him. Was she ever truly safe with him?

Toga stepped forward and Izayoi swallowed her unpleasant thoughts, watching him reach out towards the barrier and hover his hand flat over the invisible obstacle in their path. It moved beneath his palm like water under oil, as if trying to slide away from his claws, but he pressed further and it relented, his hand disappearing in midair as he passed through. Testing the waters, as it were.

He caught her gaze and tilted his head in a gesture to follow, then stepped forward and disappeared in front of her eyes.

Izayoi stared at the empty space he’d left behind, wondering if she was about to make a grave mistake.

 _No,_ she told herself. _He’s testing you._

Everything that had led her to this moment had been entirely her own fault. How many times had he warned her against her curiosities? And yet here she stood, persistent and stubborn. So now he was testing her, wondering if she was willing to stake her life on the promise of knowledge. Walking her straight into the jaws of another beast without so much as a promise to protect her.

How far was she willing to go?

His voice wandered through her mind, his meaning so blatantly obvious now: _you need to understand._

Izayoi took a breath, reconciled her thoughts, and stepped through the barrier.

The first thing she saw was Toga, gazing at her with that soft surprise she so often brought out in him. But there was something else there, too, hidden carefully in the depths of his expression. Was it regret? Guilt?

She didn’t have time to define it before she realized what the barrier had been hiding.

A field of flowers.

The entire valley was covered in them. Green flower buds curved and wound their way through ruined buildings and blanketed empty fields, crawling across the roads and twisting up every tree along the village’s edge. The closed points of vibrant red petals tipped the buds. It was beautiful, in the way that a spider crawling across its web was beautiful. Beauty wrapped up in fear, wrapped up in dread.

With their petals closed to the day, the vines beneath them were in full view.

Izayoi sucked in a breath and immediately clapped her hand to her mouth and nose, overwhelmed by the sickly sweet stench of death.

The thorns weren’t under her skin anymore. Instead they spread out across this valley, parasitic tendrils wrapping around and down into mounds of dirt that looked the same as graves– because they were graves, not yet fully covered. Hints of bodies stuck out at odd angles, a few dirty hands and limbs still burning under the sun. Twitching. 

“Why did you bring me here?”

The words were muffled against her palm, but they hadn’t been lost on him. Toga had the audacity to look apologetic.

Izayoi did everything she could not to heave. 

“They blossom when the sun sets,” he said, leaving her without an answer. It didn’t need to be said for her to know it. “Harmless, before that.”

She remembered running through a clearing at dusk. Worrying that she might not get home on time, rushing through the wilds, distracted, not paying attention to her surroundings. Running until a snare caught her ankle and pulled her legs out from under her. Until she fell so softly into a lullaby, _falling, dragging, floating into the dark. Warm cords on her arms, barbs in her skin, parasitic vines sliding between her ribs and between her muscles, around the white-hot bones beneath skin and drinking, draining, falling into a song where there was no pain_ –

She felt a hand on her arm that pulled her up and out of her thoughts, through the fog until she was back at his side, walking, trying not to fold under the weight of it all. His voice anchored her in the present.

“I won’t let her hurt you,” he sounded so far away and so close at once, lost somewhere between the pounding drum of her heart. She realized they were walking– had been walking, probably. “But this is the world you're so curious about.”

A blackened human hand stretched out along the edge of their path, no more than skin stretched over bone. Izayoi looked away, not wanting to see where the snare of vines led.

“We are not to be taken lightly.”

Her fingers tightened around his arm - when had she taken it? - and her feet moved blindly beneath her. His claws rest easily over the back of her hand, filling the small space between the edge of his armor and vambraces. They walked the dusty paths of the village together, led by his unclear intentions.

“Why?” she tried, but her voice faltered. “Toga, this village...”

“Overrun. Years, now. My business is with its demon.”

“Is it...?” The question died in her throat. His hand tightened over her arm.

“No,” he assured her, “Not the same.”

Too shaken to speak, she only gripped him tighter, crinkling the fabric of his sleeve between her fingers. He let her do as she pleased until they reached the gates of a small manor at the far edge of the village, situated on a deep slope that overlooked the valley. The sun finally slipped behind the mountains as they stopped at its gates, more overrun by wicked vines and flower buds than the rest of the village. Izayoi watched as the vines began to curl and twist in the emerging night, the closed flowers now yawning open in the twilight.

 _A pleasant bed of petals, a sweet song in her veins, the comfort of darkness lulling her to sleep._ She remembered red bleeding into white petals and looked away, staring at a scuff in the side of Toga’s armor and trying to be brave. Trying not to acknowledge the memories that threatened to well up as the flowers bloomed with a familiar, thick fragrance. At the very least, it covered the stench of death.

Toga’s hand pulled away from hers and she watched as he covered his nose and mouth, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“Are you okay?” 

He nodded.

“Smells gross,” the words were muffled against his hand, but he gathered himself well enough in only a moment. 

When his hand fell it was to gently pry hers off his arm. 

“Say nothing,” he advised, “and do as I say. Walk behind me at all times. Do you understand?”

Izayoi nodded, his serious tone enough to penetrate any stupid, stubborn urge that might surface. Satisfied with her acknowledgement, he stepped forward towards the massive gates and pushed them open with ease, cracking the thick vines apart that had held them shut. He didn’t wait for her as he crossed the threshold into the courtyard, leaving her to keep up on her own.

She kept the recommended distance, trailing behind him at twice an arm’s length and doing her best to keep herself out of sight behind his taller form. It did little to hide the view of the courtyard from her, however. All around her flowers bloomed and unfurled their petals, undeniably beautiful as they covered every square inch of the courtyard– from the ground all the way up to the tops of the walls, a dangerous latticework of ruby petals and black vines. The manor itself was equally laden, though the original bones of the building were still visible between the soft blossoms.

The path they walked was narrow, a thin strip of dirt left untouched by plant life. They didn’t follow it long, crossing through the heart of the courtyard when a voice interrupted their journey.

“What an unexpected surprise.” 

A woman’s voice, soft and sweet. It sent a chill running down Izayoi’s spine, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end in warning. She didn’t go looking for the source, staring intently at the pommel of the sword on Toga’s back instead. Her skin felt like it was on fire.

“Inu no Taisho,” it sang, and Izayoi found herself remembering what Toga had said.

_Beware anyone who calls me anything else._

“Kaoru,” he returned flatly, neglecting any sort of formality. The orb embedded in the sword’s pommel seemed to glow, catching the last dwindling rays of the sun in its death.

“To what do I owe such an honor? Ah,” Izayoi felt a strange shift in the air and the gleam of the sword left her vision, replaced by the endless gold of Toga’s eyes as he turned on the spot.

First, she recognized the pain– the way her skin went cold and began to crawl, the echo of her wounds erupting over their scars harder than ever before. It took every ounce of her self control not to go grasping at them, feeling as if an ocean wave had crashed down on her. 

“What’s this?” the voice said in Izayoi’s ear, and the tide dragged her down.

Kaoru, like Toga, had an air about her. Where his presence was always heavy and reserved, hers was sticking and overwhelming, pricking along her skin like a thousand tiny knives and making her heart quicken, closing a lump in her throat. Elegant white claws skated underneath her jaw and she closed her fists in her kimono sleeves, refusing to tremble as a hand brushed every so softly across her neck.

“A gift or a meal? Both?” the demoness guessed. Izayoi started counting the grains of sand at her feet. “Or maybe something else? A pet?”

_Say nothing. Do nothing._

“Not yours.” Toga said simply, so blunt and impassive that he sounded like an entirely different person.

“Mm. She smells enchanting.” Slender arms draped over her shoulders, crossing over the top of her chest. A swath of dark, curling hair spilled down her front from where it fell around Kaoru’s face, her warm breath now dancing down her cheek. A familiar heaviness crept into Izayoi’s heart, darkening the edges of her vision as the edges of her scars seemed to blister and peel. “A lover, then?”

“Don’t waste my time.”

Then the presence was gone, the weight lifted, and Toga was obscured from her vision by the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

Kaoru stood before her in the form of a human, more beautiful than any noblewoman of any court she had ever known. Silk kimono layered her slender form in elegant shades of red and white, embroidered with intricate blossoms across her shoulders and along the hem. Her lips were painted red, highlighting the smooth, porcelain planes of her face. It was all framed by the dark tresses that curled around her cheeks and spilled down her front, a strange style that seemed to make her only more ethereal.

The illusion was broken, however, when Izayoi met her tiny, red eyes. The same color as the bloody petals that surrounded them.

“You’re the one who came to me, Inu no Taisho,” Kaoru pointed out, twirling away from Izayoi. “Unannounced.” 

“As your son came to me.”

“Oh?” This pulled her attention completely, sweeping a small gust of relief through Izayoi. She returned her gaze to the ground, trying to think of a way to get herself back behind Toga without being noticed. “Which one?”

“The dead one.”

Izayoi’s head whirled up to him, eyes wide in true shock. Kaoru had grown still, no longer standing directly between them, but still close enough that her very mortal safety could be at risk. Toga, for his part, seemed unconcerned.

"The dead one?" Kaoru repeated, very slowly. Toga was painfully apathetic in his response.

“Ren. I’ve warned him and his brother before," he said plainly. "He still failed to steer clear of my lands."

“Did he?” she breathed. Her peering gaze traveled from Toga to Izayoi and back, a tense expression creasing her beauty. 

“I’ve come here as courtesy.”

 _It’s a threat, not courtesy._ Izayoi wanted very much to disappear, suddenly feeling as though someone had nocked an arrow at her back. Neither Kaoru nor Toga spared her a single glance, but there was a dangerous tension rising between them. It was electric, practically crackling in the air.

“I see,” Kaoru said tersely, but it ended with a sigh. “Well. I prefer his brother, anyway. Much more mannered.”

The tension broke. Kaoru’s tense nature dissipated in an instant, all her reserved anger and offense fading away as if it had never existed in the first place. Suddenly unbothered by the prospect of her son’s murder, she walked through her flowers and back towards the manor.

“Your courtesy will not be forgotten, Inu No Taisho. It’s been a pleasure.”

But as the door of the manor slid shut, Izayoi knew the danger had not yet passed.

After a few brief, breathless seconds of silence, Toga turned and passed by her, dipping low to murmur in her ear.

“Behind me. Calmly.”

His tone told her everything she needed to know.

He didn’t once break his stride. She obeyed, following him down the paths he led her, trying to keep within an arm’s length as his long legs kept her pace quick. This time she didn’t see the bodies blanketed by thorns, didn’t pay any mind to the flowers in full bloom around her. All her fear was gone by the grace of her adrenaline. Even though her body felt like someone had laid her down on a bed of needles, she no longer felt the need to try and manage the pain.

Why had he brought her here? Why had he openly admitted murder to the mother of his victim? Was this really all some sort of sick, childish attempt to test her? To see if he could scare her off?

There was no time to consider all the questions that were flying through her mind, because the air was growing heavier with every passing second. Kaoru’s presence was all around them, crashing across them in waves as more and more of her blossoms stretched open under the moonlight.

It was dark and Toga was in front of her, still shining, still leading her out of the belly of the beast.

They were on the final stretch of road that would take them from the village when he stopped short, a gust of wind blowing against his back and whipping his ponytail up into the air. Izayoi stilled.

“I’m sorry,” he said, inexplicably. “I miscalculated.”

“What?” she breathed. The wind kicked up around them and loosed flower petals free from the fields, spinning them up into the sky. The last of the village’s buildings were only scant meters behind them.

The farmlands began to creak and groan in the night.

“Run,” Toga said, and then he wasn’t in front of her anymore.

Without questioning the command, she gathered her skirts and ran as fast as her sore legs could carry her. She didn’t look back. The sound of it was enough, the few glimpses she caught out of the corners of her eyes as she flew up the hillside fueling her horror: the deafening crack as vines rose from the earth, displacing flowers and bodies alike as their thorned tendrils stretched up into the sky in gnarled appendages. A blanket of red petals flurried through the sky as their gorey flowerbeds were exposed– a sea of dark, black soil and the bodies of barely-living men and women impaled on their thorns, no longer alive enough to do more than creak and groan as they were jostled about.

_That’s what you almost were._

Their skin was stretched tight over their bodies, shrunken into deep hollows wherever there wasn’t a bone to support it. The soft, fleshy parts of living - eyes, noses, lips, fat and muscle - had long since dried and shriveled or rotted away. All that was left of their lives were the husks of their bodies, their barely beating hearts. How long had they been kept like this?

 _Years,_ she remembered Toga saying, and her feet flew faster.

Crawling vines chased her up the hill, impossibly fast. Though the larger ones seemed more preoccupied with whatever tearing, cracking, and shredding sounds ripped through the world behind her, she could see smaller tendrils darting out in her peripherals, chasing her up the path as she tried to escape the long planes of the fields. Some snagged at the hem of her kimono, but mercifully the thorns tore right through the fabric.

There was a terrible crashing sound that caught her attention, turning her before she had time to consider that it might be a mistake.

_Toga._

She saw him the second before it happened. Gnarled vines twice the width of tree trunks hung in the open sky above him, his body in a low defensive stance and his claws extended in front of him. Kaoru was standing on the edge of a nearby roof, puppeteering the gigantic vines as her own appendages. She was no longer beautiful; vines of her own swarmed out from underneath her clothes, the tangles of her hair hanging around her face in midair as she sneered, openly furious and no longer porcelain smooth, all her features cared in rough lines of wood.

She screamed and her vines came hurtling down, bent at their peaks and stretching, screaming, crashing around Toga in one mighty fist.

And for one terrible, terrifying moment, she thought he might be dead.

Then the demoness’ eyes, large and red now, filled with an evil that Izayoi couldn’t comprehend, struck her directly in the heart despite their great distance. 

_Run!_

She turned to flee, but it was already too late. There was something wound around her ankle and a laugh in her ears, as sharp as it was sweet, screaming in her head, dragging her to the ground. She was pulled down over rocks and dirt, scraping her hands and arms bloody as she was reeled back in towards the demoness she had fled from. Turning futility on her back to try and reduce the damage, she saw the larger vines now turned on her, shooting out from the great fist they’d brought down on Toga and daring to draw her in.

 _He’s dead,_ her mind cried, and then, _You’re dead._

All was lost until a cracking sound shook the very ground beneath her battered body, a golden slash of light cutting through the dark night. Silver flashed in front of her and Izayoi felt the vines wither and die around her ankle, practically screaming as it did. 

Toga stood in front of her, haloed in the moonlight.

The vines struck him instead.

Izayoi watched in horror as the thorns dug into his leg, narrowly missing his arms, writhing their way completely through until he was impaled, still trying to reach her through his body. The sound of it was awful and the blood was worse, spraying out on the ground in a single sickening squelch. He grunted and shifted his weight entirely onto his other leg, falling into a low stance. 

Izayoi could see Kaoru floating in the sky over the open space above his shoulder, suspended by her great gnarled thorns, looking down on them with such hate. Her wooden face was carved with a dripping sort of smugness.

“A lover it was,” she said, laughing. “How pathetic.” 

Her hands rose and her vines lifted with them, arching over them beneath the stars. 

“I can’t wait to taste you, dog.”

The shadows cast them in long fingers of darkness, obscuring the moonlight. Somehow, the pommel of his sword still seemed to gleam with light.

“Bitch,” he growled, and the rumble of his voice chased right though Izayoi’s chest. He reached up and back with a single bloodied hand, claws hovering over the silver hilt of his sword.

Kaoru’s eyes flew open and Toga pulled, unsheathing the blade from its scabbard by only an inch.

Time lay down and fell still as the pommel burst with dark light.

 _Evil. Malice. Hate._ All the fear she had ever known amounted to nothing. This blade sang with screams, with the dying song of men, reaching out with invisible hands and freezing the air around them, convincing time itself to submit and slow, stopping her heart in her chest. This was evil. This was true fear, forged in steel and silver. 

_Death._

Kaoru erupted in red flower petals in an instant, blinding them both in a tornado that masked her escape. Izayoi covered her head with her hands, bending low to the ground and Toga shielded his face behind his arm, grunting.

When the flowers cleared, Kaoru and all her terrible vines were gone.

The sword scraped back into its sheath and warmth flooded back into the world. 

“I’m sorry,” Toga was saying, but Izayoi didn’t hear him. She couldn’t even stand.

There were hands on her again– his hands, gentle and strong and bloody, collecting her up off the ground and getting her on her feet. Staying around her waist, holding her fast to his side.

“Hold onto me.”

She did. The world moved again and they were gone from the gorey fields, now left open for the crows. Dying men and women groaned and sputtered, their lives slowly extinguishing, finally freed from the curse that had forced their corpses to live.

Then they were all gone and she and Toga were standing under the trees, safe in the dark. Her feet touched the ground and had her by the shoulders, looking her over.

“Izayoi, were you hurt?” 

“Your leg,” she said, numb. “I saw– your leg.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not–”

“Izayoi.” His tone was commanding, trying to shake her free from her shock. And it did, in a way; it awoke something feral and furious with a sudden snap, chasing away the numbness in her chest.

“How could you?!” 

Furious wasn’t the appropriate word to describe how she felt. It was something more than that, wrapped up in terror and adrenaline and anger. Tears pricked hot in the corners of her eyes.

“I was terrified!” she yelled, pulling her shoulders out of his grasp. Her legs felt like jelly underneath her, but by some miracle she remained standing.

Then he gave her a look that was so presumptuous, so condescending that she wanted to scream again, wanted to tear away his stupid face, so clearly saying, _this is my world and you don’t belong in it, I told you._

“No, shut up!” Her outburst startled him because he hadn’t said anything at all, but she was full of indignant rage, shaking, and she didn’t care, “I was scared for _you,_ you moron!”

The admission struck him like a slap across the face. Izayoi’s hands trembled and she clutched them together, not thinking about what she was saying before the words spilled out between them.

“How dare you! Why did you bring me out here? Did you think this would scare me off? I thought you were _dead_. You just disappeared, and she was there, and– and–” Tears fell down her cheeks, uncontrollable. “I was so worried. I thought she’d killed you, or worse, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“You were… worried about me?” he repeated plainly. Izayoi wanted to punch him in the face.

“Yes, stupid.”

In those brief, terrifying moments between living or dying, she had only cared about what had happened to him. Him and his stupid face, his stupid voice, and even his stupid superiority complex. It was like someone had tried to rip her lungs from her chest and expected her to keep on living.

“You can’t do that,” she insisted, slowly calming from her rage. “You can’t scare me like that.”

Toga was still staring at her like she’d lost her mind. She couldn’t pretend to know what he was thinking, but it wasn’t long before he let his confusion go and turned softer, regarding her with a distant sort of reserve. It almost looked like admiration.

“I owe you an apology. I was careless and it put you in danger.”

“I don’t care about me,” she said, a little breathless. The world felt fuzzy around the edges.

“You should.”

Her eyes snapped up to him and he moved closer again, wordlessly pulling her back up into his arms. It was probably for the best. Her legs were ready to give out from underneath her.

“I never meant for any of that to happen,” he said, something soothing about the timbre of his voice. She slipped one arm around his neck, adjusting a little in his arms so there were no unwanted spikes pressing into her. 

“Your leg,” she said again absently, resting her head against her shoulder. 

“Mostly healed,” he said softly. “I can walk. Don’t worry about me.”

She wanted to argue, but exhaustion was crashing down on her. She was scraped up and sore, barely able to keep her eyes open.

“Sleep,” he said softly, his hands tensing around her as he bounded up into the open sky. She gripped him a little tighter. “You’re safe.”

“Where are you taking me?” 

Her eyes drifted shut, the night wind whipping a loose strand of his hair over her cheeks before it flagged out behind him. 

“Home,” he said, and it was the truth.

It was unclear if she managed to sleep at all in the time between closing her eyes and reopening them, but when she did he was lowering her to the ground, holding her up until she had enough presence of mind to stand on her own. There were still trees above their heads and the night carried on, but she could see the treeline in front of her, a misty, dim glow of a lantern somewhere in the distance.

“They’re looking for you,” he murmured. Men’s voices echoed over his in the dark, calling for their lord’s daughter. “It’s best if you’re found, I think.”

She nodded, sleepily reaching behind her shoulder to gather her hair and pull it over her shoulder. There was nothing there to take, however, and she remembered what he’d done so much earlier in the day. It felt like a lifetime had passed between then and now.

“Your...” she began, reaching up to pull his dressings out of her hair. “These are yours.”

His hand fell over hers, stilling her before she could pluck the kanzashi free.

“Keep it,” he murmured.

Men kept calling, their lantern light growing ever closer. Dogs barked through the trees.

“Goodbye, Izayoi.”

His words felt far too final. She reached out and reacted to them, turning her hand to grasp his before it slipped away, preventing him from disappearing like he so often did. She could feel him tense beneath her touch, realizing vaguely that while he might be brave enough to initiate contact with her, she so rarely initiated with him.

“When are you coming back?”

The gold of his eyes gleamed against orange lantern light, flicking up to see how close the search party had come before falling back down to her. His gaze was uncertain and searching, almost as if he hadn’t been able to understand her words.

“You want me to come back?”

He sounded surprised. Maybe she was a little bit, too.

“Yes.”


	6. Chapter 6

When Izayoi had eventually been found alone in the middle of the forest, scraped, bruised, and bloodied, the guards had blessedly decided it would be inappropriate to pry her with questions. A vague, disjointed story about being kidnapped and escaping after the demon had fallen asleep seemed satisfactory enough to them. She was whisked away back to the castle as fast as their horses could carry her, delivered into the care of her maidservants and healers.

Once she was bandaged, dressed, and stowed away in her rooms for the night, Izayoi fell back in her bedroll and let out the breath she had been holding all day.

_The full moon._

She would have to wait a week to see him again. He wouldn’t be in the area until then, and he’d made her promise she wouldn’t go wandering out into the forest until he returned. She needed to heal, anyway, and the castle would be watching her after this ordeal. It was safer for her to save her curiosities for later.

Reaching back with her bandaged hands, Izayoi finally plucked his kanzashi from her bun, bringing it to rest on her chest as she untied the cord that still bound her heavy hair. It spilled all around her in loose curls, shaped by the style it had been held in all day. 

Sighing and letting her head fall back on her pillow, she fell asleep without looking at the hairpin on her breast, resting her hand on top of it as exhaustion won out over consciousness.

In the morning, though, it felt as if she’d aged a hundred years overnight.

It didn’t get much better as the week went on. Now that she was conscious to the world and decidedly safe, her maidservants had grown more curious and were often prying. Healers tried to press her for details when her bandages were changed. She could ignore all the tittering for the most part, dismissing questions when she didn’t have a good answer for them. 

But then there was Sadako to consider.

Sadako was the eldest of all her maidservants, a regular fixture in her life. Once, she had been her late mother’s servant, and then had become her own closest nursemaid after her mother had passed and her father remarried. She had grown up under her watchful eye; no one knew her better. And though she may have outgrown nursemaids, there was no outgrowing a mother– figurative or otherwise. Which was why she tried to keep as far away from her as possible, because Sadako could see through her as clearly as a stream. Perhaps she would never betray her trust, but the last thing she needed was anyone discovering the nature of her mishaps with demonkind.

She did eventually catch on, however. It was inevitable.

Izayoi had been minding her own business, sitting on the en outside her rooms with an abandoned koto in front of her, neglecting her practice to stare at the birds tweeting in the maple trees of the garden. She turned Toga’s kanzashi over in her hands, thoughtful, trying to decide what she would ask him during their next meeting. It was just four nights away now, and she’d kept her promise not to go wandering out into the woods when he wasn’t nearby.

It was strange how easy it was to listen to him.

The ornament he’d gifted her was no more than a small, long stick of polished bone, glistening white in the sun and tapered down to a long, dangerous point at one end. For as many questions as she knew she would ask him about Kaoru and her sons, she also wondered what the story behind this small item was. Was it the remnants of a beast? An enemy? Or perhaps it was simply a purchased bauble, nothing more than a necessary trinket he kept during his travels.

Her thumb rubbed over the crescent moon carved into the flat top, also considering the stern talking-to she thought he deserved. She hadn’t decided if pursuing it was worth the risk.

“What do you have there?”

Izayoi’s hand shot back inside the deep sleeves of her kimono, hiding the memento within its folds and feeling as though she’d been caught doing something scandalous. Sadako stared at her, standing down the open hall with her hands on her hips, scrutinizing.

Perhaps Sadako was a plain, matronly woman without a shred of ferociousness about her, but no one could strike fear into Izayoi’s heart faster.

“Nothing,” she said hastily, less than convincing, “Am I not allowed to enjoy the day in my own home?”

“All I see is dawdling, young lady.” 

Dutifully, Izayoi returned to her instrument. Her secret was safe in the deep folds of her kimono, back in its usual place. Unable to wear it openly or store it without risking it being found, she had settled for keeping it on her person at all times, slipping it in various hiding spots around her rooms whenever she had to be dressed. 

“Did you need something?” 

She began to play, trying to keep her mind on the notes. She knew she had been caught - there were no sharper eyes in the palace than Sadako’s - but there was still a chance she might escape this conversation unscathed.

“Are you all right?”

Izayoi’s hands stilled over the strings. She looked up to Sadako, who seemed suddenly maternal as she looked down on her. Her hands fell away from her sides and she folded down to her knees at Izayoi’s side, placing her hands in her lap.

“You’ve been through many ordeals as of late, my lady,” she said, by way of explanation. Izayoi said nothing. “I understand how it might make your mind wander. I only wish to know you are well, or help you if you aren’t.”

Affection filled her heart and Izayoi softened, looking down at the strings of her instrument. The way the sun reflected off of them made her think of silver strands of hair against the sky, leading deeper into thoughts of being held against an armored chest. It was ridiculous.

“I’m fine, Sadako-san,” she said softly. “I was unharmed.”

Understanding, in the way that only a wise woman could be, Sadako pressed a bit more gently.

“I didn’t mean your body.”

 _Oh._ Izayoi bit her bottom lip, considering this. The world seemed like such a blur around her that she hadn’t given her own mind any thought, always drifting between moments in a daze or a daydream. Was she all right? Or was she just acting out, doing whatever impulse asked because she had nearly died– because she was a foolish, ridiculous girl who felt drawn more to another world than her own?

A scar prickled and she placed her hand over her forearm, pressing down softly.

“I will be,” she decided, and the woman that had become her mother nodded.

“Good.”

Those words stayed with her long after Sadako had gone.

One day turned to the next and then the next, her thoughts growing heavier with every rise and fall of the moon. When dusk did finally approach on the night when Toga was meant to return, Izayoi found herself doubting. 

What was she doing? What would she gain from chasing a demon and all of her thousands of curiosities? It was harmless, yes, but only when it wanted to be. Other times it was all vines and red flower petals, blood and corpses being dragged across the ground. Escaping out into the night to explore the forest was foolish enough, but this? She had responsibilities. As the single daughter of a struggling clan, she was meant to marry– and for all her father claimed otherwise, she knew they were struggling. That was why he spent so much time away and why his wife refused to share the running of the household with her, hiding the details of their coffers from her. Suitors didn’t come calling nearly as frequently as they should. Girls far younger than her found husbands every day, and yet…

She pinned her chin in the palm of her hand and sighed, leaning over and staring at the rock paths at her feet. _Time to grow up,_ she lamented. The gardens were quiet and serene around her, making stark contrast to the storms in her mind. Perhaps she needed to stop chasing her dreams and face reality. 

Or perhaps not, because there was a demon staring at her from across the garden. 

Balanced on the high precipice of a far wall, Toga stared down at her, crouched low and haloed by the dying light of dusk. He seemed to be able to support his entire weight on the tips of his toes, the flexible material of his boots bent as he loomed on the wall like a predator. It was so unnatural and strange, making something in the back of her mind prick with warning, but he smiled and it shattered any perception of doom.

All her other doubts rushed away in a single breath.

“Toga, what are you–”

She looked around, but there was no one to see them. He smiled and dropped down from the wall in one graceful movement, floating down to the grass. 

He had come for her.

“They’re guarding that crack in the wall you like to slip through,” he explained, approaching her with footfalls that were nearly silent. “I thought you’d rather not be caught.”

 _Sadako,_ Izayoi cursed to herself. She gnawed on her bottom lip, thinking. What did that old woman know? She was more than familiar with her habit for sneaking, but she’d never acted to stop her before. It could just be that the guards had finally seen that old crack after searching so frantically for her, but that didn’t feel like the correct conclusion to make.

Though her thoughts were nothing but worries about being found out, Toga must have taken her silence as hesitation.

“If you still want my company, that is,” he voice was low and understanding, if not somewhat reserved. “Tell me to go and I will.” 

Her head snapped up to his in surprise.

“Of course I do. Want your company, that is,” she added hastily, standing from the bench, “I mean, I’m not happy with you, exactly, but that doesn’t change anything. You owe me some answers.”

He snorted softly, seeming almost relieved.

“Do I?”

She gave him a look that clearly said, _knock it off_ , and he chuckled. 

“Well,” he said eventually, lifting his arm to her to offer the space at his side. “Before we’re seen.”

She slipped in beside him and latched her hands on the ridges of his armor, letting him wrap his arm around her waist in a way that was starting to become startlingly familiar. He carried her into the air as he leapt, falling in a short arch over the garden and its walls, across a few roofs and finally through the treetops, landing underneath the cover of their leaves. He let her go easily but pressed a finger to his lips, bidding her silence.

“They’re looking for me,” he explained. As if to support his claim, the muffled voices of men in the distance reached them. They sounded drunk. “Not well, but still.”

She stifled a small giggle, not knowing where it had come from. 

“Why?” she whispered, though the answer was obvious.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” he asked, eyes sparkling, “I kidnapped their hime.” 

He smirked, nodding his head for her to follow him. She kept pace at his side, looking for the guards in the forest that he seemed to sense.

“Really? How scandalous.” For some reason her heart fluttered in her chest. “Whatever for?”

“I thought I might knock some damn sense into her. Never met a woman so stubborn.”

“Oh?” she asked, suppressing the urge to poke him in the ribs. She’d only smash her finger against his armor. “Well, I’m sure she’s never met a man as childish, presumptuous, or brutish as you.”

“Presumptuous?” he asked, tilting his head.

“That’s what you got out of that?”

He shrugged, looking back over the top of her head into the trees behind them. There was still light in the sky, but it didn’t help her see what he was looking at in the slightest.

“All right, they’ve gone,” he murmured. “Back to their stubborn hime.”

“Stubborn,” she scoffed. She thought she heard him snort.

Familiar with these forests and now freed from the threat of being found out, she walked ahead of him, breaking out into the clearing where they’d met just as twilight began to fade. It wasn’t much of a spot, if one were being honest, but it was _theirs_ \- where she had almost died, where he’d saved her life, and now where they met and watched the early hours of night pass by. Once was a happenstance, twice and thrice could be a coincidence, but four times…

Well, this was becoming a pattern.

The soft tapping of metal against metal came from behind her, the vaguely familiar sound of armor being removed interrupting the peaceful silence. Izayoi didn’t turn until it seemed he had finished, not wanting to seem as though she wanted to watch him undress, no matter how surface-level the layers were.

“I have questions," she announced. He snorted as he untied and tossed his vambraces onto the pile of his discarded armor.

“Really?” he asked, making her frown at the playful nature of his expression.

“Yes, and you’re actually going to answer them this time. You owe _me_ , now.”

He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, lowering himself down to sit against the tree he stood in front of. 

“As I recall, you still owe me a ransom,” he prodded, only teasing. Mercifully, he seemed to accept what she was telling him. 

She couldn’t think of a quick retort and settled for giving him a flat look, giving her best attempt at his signature impassive expression.

“All right,” he surrendered, though there was still a grin on his face. “Go on.”

It was as if he’d just given a dam permission to burst. She folded down next to him in a heap of fabric, eagerly taking her usual spot at the tree closest to his own.

“Tell me about the flower demoness.” She pulled her hair back in one long sweep over her shoulder, settling in. “Did you know her? Did you kill her?”

“Yes to the first, no the second,” Toga admitted, propping his arm up on one bent knee. “She escaped.”

“But you did know her."

“Only in the way that anyone knows about a nuisance. She’s been edging the border of my territory for years.”

“And her sons crossed into it?”

He nodded, tipping his head back to rest. His ponytail propped him off the tree slightly, neck tilted to accommodate for the sword on his back.

“One of them. He’d done something similar before and I warned him off, but he didn’t listen.”

“The other?” 

Toga shrugged. Izayoi smoothed the wrinkles of her kimono, mindlessly ensuring her scars were safely out of sight. Questions pooled in the front of her mind, some harder to ask than others. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to ruin their peacefulness yet.

“Where did you get that kanzashi?” 

“Ah,” a grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, hinting at a small fang beneath. He welcomed the change in topic. “Spider demon. Do you like it?”

“A spider demon gave it to you?”

“Not willingly," he said darkly, "Handy in a scrape if you want to paralyze someone, though." Her eyes opened wide and he chuckled, apparently amused by her shock. “Don't worry. You’d have to stab someone pretty hard for that fang to have any effect, little hime.” 

Not entirely sure what to do with this information, she found her hand slipping into the depths of her sleeve to touch the object in question, now very aware of the possible dangers it posed. Not to her, of course, but to others. Toga had gifted her a weapon.

“Do you have it?” he wondered, unusually curious.

She nodded and he grinned wider, pleased.

“Good. Keep it close.”

 _Protect yourself,_ he meant, but the words were left unsaid. 

That minor subject broached and now closed, she left the little fang hidden in her sleeve and considered her next move. The silence lasted long enough that Toga’s grin faded into patient contemplation, his mind wandering to places she couldn’t reach while he waited for her next question.

“So,” she began, once she'd decided and gathered up her courage, “If you knew that she might challenge you– Kaoru,” she clarified quickly, trying not to stumble over her words. “If you knew there could be a battle, why did you bring me?”

It was a dangerous question, though only barely. He remained quiet as his gaze turned distant, compelling her to keep speaking.

“Were you trying to scare me off?” she pressed, feeling nervousness begin to build in her chest. “I still don’t understand.”

The silence remained and this time she let it be, knowing that it would force him to answer eventually.

“I never intended to subject you to battle,” he said finally. He raised his claws to inspect them, feigning impassiveness. “People are rarely so bold with me. I never expected her to make the assumption she did.”

He was dodging parts of her questions again, but she knew she could lead him back around to it if she were clever enough.

“What assumption?”

He cast his gaze over to her, letting his wrist relax. Something about it seemed pointed.

“She thought you were my lover,” he reminded. The way he said that word – _lover_ – made it hang in the air between them, pinned with insinuation, but he kept speaking without acknowledging it further. “A weakness. Something I haven’t had in a long time.”

Izayoi picked at her fingernails, thinking over this. It seemed ridiculous. 

“Why?”

“Why don’t I have weaknesses?” 

“No,” she shook her head, genuinely confused. “Why would she think I’m your lover?”

The way he stared at her then made her feel small.

They weren’t lovers. She didn’t know what they were exactly, but whatever bond they shared wasn’t that– _if_ there was even a bond to speak of. Were they friends? Acquaintances? Or were they merely the savior and the saved? A predator and his prey? 

Embarrassed and a little flustered, Izayoi turned her downcast, finding it hard to look at him when he was staring at her so openly. He could be so awkward sometimes. 

“I mean,” she hedged, compelled to fill the silence, “I’m just a human. Nothing special. And you’re,” she glanced back up to him, gesturing vaguely, “you.” 

“I’m me?” he repeated flatly. She couldn’t tell if he truly didn’t understand her meaning.

“Yes,” she murmured, drawing her knees up to her chest and folding her arms across them, tipping her chin on top of her sleeves and looking away. “Why would you ever bother with–” _me,_ she meant to say, but thought better of it, “–a human?”

Oppressive silence came down around her and she decided to wait it out, unable to vocalize her thoughts any further without humiliating herself. 

“Mortality,” he said finally, too carefully, “is not a defining trait of attractiveness.”

There was so much wrapped up in those eight words that Izayoi couldn’t comprehend them, turning her head to look at him again. He merely gazed back at her.

“What do you mean?”

He looked thoughtful, if not a little amused. 

“That you should think better of yourself.” 

If she weren’t embarrassed before, she certainly was now. If Toga noticed, he didn’t say a word, continuing to speak instead.

“It's not unheard of for pretty young women to find themselves ensnared by daiyoukai, or even lesser youkai,” he mused, never once looking away from her. “Rarely does it end well. When it does, well… that’s when a problem arises.”

 _A problem. A weakness._ Izayoi bit her bottom lip, hiding it behind the folds of her arm.

“That wretch thought she saw an opportunity to challenge me and took it.”

“And she escaped,” she realized, and therein was the crux of the issue.

Toga nodded, but seemed unperturbed. Izayoi remembered the evil in the air, the crawling sensation of death down her spine, and the flurry of ruby blossoms that had whirled around them.

“I will handle it. There's no need to worry.”

She believed him, perhaps foolishly. Her faith in his abilities grew by the day, though he’d given her no reason to think that way. 

“So why did you bring me, then?” she asked again, circling the conversation back around now that he likely thought he’d evaded the topic, “Knowing all this?”

He tipped his head away from her, apparently caught. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself as she waited for her answer. 

“I was trying to scare you off, yes,” he admitted, voice low, “I suppose it was a futile endeavor.”

His words struck her heart in a strange way, a twinge of rejection in her breast. She might’ve celebrated being right about anything else when he was being elusive, but this stung.

“Do you despise me that much?” she wondered, mostly to herself, “Why do you keep coming back if I’m such an annoyance? Just tell me to go, and I–”

“Despise?” he said, caught on the word. 

“Why else would you try to scare me off?”

“Izayoi,” his voice was gentle now, but it held an air of importance to it, as if he very much wanted her to hear what he was saying. She closed her mouth. “How could I despise you? After all I’ve ever done has been to protect you?”

_What?_

Toga had told her once that she barely knew him. She was more aware of that fact now that she had ever been before, perplexed by his words. At her silence, he continued to speak.

“You don’t understand the danger that you’re in just by being near me.”

The moonlight felt heavy above them. 

“Then why?” she asked, though she barely knew what she was saying. It could mean a thousand things; why stay, why go, why come back, why sweep her away only to hold her close, why drive her away in the same moments he drew her in?

He understood.

“Because I’m a fool.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [En (Engawa)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engawa) :: an edging strip of non-tatami-matted flooring, usually wood or bamboo. Ens may run around the rooms, on the outside of the building, in which case they resemble a porch or sunroom.  
> [Koto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koto_\(instrument\)) :: Japanese string instrument.


	7. Chapter 7

**KAGOME**

As summer stretched on in Izayoi’s diaries, winter grew colder in Kagome’s world and her belly managed to grow even larger. She was more than just heavily pregnant, now; she was mountainous, and walking sometimes proved to be quite the ordeal. 

Not that InuYasha ever let her walk anywhere.

Their life had fallen into a steady routine in the little hut they’d built for them, most of her waking hours either spent there or with Kaede, helping her with medicines and herbs to the best of her abilities. At night she and her husband would rest down and delve into his mother’s past, reading about all her stolen encounters with his father. Sometimes all that had been left behind were the cliffnotes of their conversations, but other times she recounted entire, sprawling interactions with impressive care. She was a talented writer; Kagome supposed it was natural for any noblewoman to be, given enough time and practice.

She was absolutely enthralled by her mother-in-law’s diaries. InuYasha, for his part, usually kept his thoughts to himself. Naturally, she never pressed him to share more than he was willing. 

Walking up the short slope toward Sango’s home with a small laundry basket held at her side, she couldn’t help but wonder what was coming next for that tragically fated couple. Sango walked alongside her with the bulk of their chores in hand, enjoying the comfortable silence they shared.

“Oi,” InuYasha’s voice was immediate as they stepped inside Sango’s home, ducking under the heavy flap that kept the winter cold out, “Woman, you shouldn’t be carrying that.”

Kagome smiled and rolled her eyes as her husband stole away the basket, having rushed to his feet in a blur of silver and red. 

“I was just helping,” she insisted, refusing to admit that he was right. “Sango did most of the work.”

Sango nodded, hefting her own basket of clean laundry against her hip. The recent snows had melted and the sun was shining today, so they’d all decided to take advantage of it while they could. 

“Overprotective, much?” she asked, clearly amused. 

InuYasha scoffed, winding his arm around Kagome’s waist. He pressed a kiss into her hair.

“Don’t tell me how to act.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sango said, clearly humoring him. She beckoned her children next. “C’mon, you lot, this goes quicker if everyone helps.”

The twins sat around a table with their father, paper spread out in front of them and brushes in hand as they practiced their calligraphy. Sensing the impending complaints, Miroku clapped his hands together. Their third and youngest child, Hisui, copied him from where he sat in his lap. There were ink stains on his hands, likely the cause for the smear of black across Miroku’s cheek.

“You heard your mother. Go on. We can get back to this later.”

They got to their feet with only a few grumbling remarks, preferring the warmth of the house over doing chores outside. 

“And take InuYasha’s basket,” she added, tapping Gyokuto on the head as she passed by and rushed out into the yard. 

“Oh, Sango, you don’t have to–” Despite Kagome’s protests, InuYasha dropped their basket into Kin'u's arms without any complaints.

“I insist,” Sango said, holding her hands up in a no-nonsense gesture. 

“It’s our turn to help you now, Kagome-sama,” Miroku agreed, passing off Hisui into his mother’s arms and taking the laundry from her in turn. The young boy smiled, hugging her neck as she licked the pad of her thumb and started scrubbing at the ink stains on her husband’s face. He tried to bat her hand away. “You’ve helped us enough through the years.”

“Yeah, can’t stop popping out kids, can ya?”

“InuYasha,” Kagome chided lightly, but her heart was warm. After all they’d been through, she enjoyed these moments of relative normalcy.

“What? It’s ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is that it took you this long to have your own,” Sango shot back, “I thought Kohaku might find someone and have kids before you at the rate you were going. Or maybe Sesshomaru.”

“Ugh, ew,” InuYasha looked uncomfortable at the thought. “Don’t.” 

“Well, we know it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying,” Miroku commented unhelpfully, looking absurdly thoughtful about it.

Kagome’s cheeks flushed with heat and InuYasha held her a bit tighter, already flaring up. Sango looked equally offended.

“Oi! What the hell did you say, you bastard?!” 

“Miroku!”

Sensing danger, the monk made for his escape. 

“Ah, look. The children need me!”

InuYasha grabbed for his collar, but he deftly dodged and rushed out the door. Kagome sighed, covering her face with her hands. Even after all these years, Miroku always found a way to say the most embarrassing things.

“Bastard, get back here!”

Sango sighed, shaking her head. 

“Go on, you two.” Hisui yawned in her arms. “I’ll have girls bring your laundry over when it’s dry.” 

Kagome peeked out from between her fingers, then finally let her hands fall away. But she couldn’t completely suppress the warmth in her cheeks as InuYasha grumbled something unintelligible into her hair. 

“Really, Sango, we can–”

“Really, Kagome, you shouldn’t be on your feet all day. It’s been decided.” She put her hand on InuYasha’s shoulder and bodily turned him to the door, turning Kagome with him and giving them both a little push. “Take her home.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

InuYasha moved easily enough to keep her from stumbling, always a pillar of support when he had his arms around her. Kagome looked back helplessly over her shoulder as they walked away, knowing she’d lost the battle. All she could do was return Hisui’s wave goodbye and smile, forcing herself not to get weepy as InuYasha started them on their short walk home. It was easy to feel overwhelmed these days.

She folded one arm over her ever-growing belly as InuYasha let his arm fall from her shoulders, reaching to take her other hand in his own. Their fingers intertwined with ease.

“You all right?” he wondered, squeezing her hand gently. “The baby?”

She smiled.

“We’re fine. Little sore, maybe.”

“Let me carry you,” he insisted, sensing an immediate call to action.

“No. No!” she laughed, holding his hand a bit tighter so he wouldn’t let go to gather her up. “It’s nice to get out and walk.”

“But–”

“No, InuYasha. I’m fine.” 

He seemed skeptical, clearly wanting to argue it further. 

_He just wants to help,_ she reminded herself. As much as his worrying and protectiveness could sometimes get on her nerves, she knew it was all coming from a good place.

“If it hurts later, you can give me a massage,” she conceded, knowing it was only half of a compromise. “I promise.”

“Keh. Stubborn.”

“Oh, I’m stubborn?” She poked her finger between his ribs, twisting lightly. He swiped lazily at her hand. “Guess I learned from the best, didn’t I?”

“What, you’ve been spending time with my brother behind my back?”

Her eyes rolled with enough force to move mountains. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Am I? I’m not the one refusing to be carried when I’m tired.”

“Not tired, sore,” she corrected.

“Oh.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Of course. Sore.”

Then he moved too swiftly for her to stop him, his foot sweeping through her ankles to tip her off balance as he hooked one arm under her legs and scooped her up into his embrace. It sent her stomach swirling for a moment, leaving her blinking up at the sky and the underside of his jaw.

“Hey!”

“What?” he smirked, looking down at her with all the affection in the world. It melted her. “I’m stubborn. Said so yourself.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks before she could even try to compose herself, her heart fluttering.

“You’re the worst,” she grumbled and looped an arm around his neck, settling into his embrace despite her best attempts to stay on her own two feet. He laughed and pressed a kiss in her hair, turning down the path that led to their small home. 

“I know.”

He had her indoors soon enough, being his unusually helpful self when it came to preparing dinner and eventually putting their laundry away. He was changing in front of Kagome’s eyes, morphing into a more mature version of himself every day. The brash young man she had fallen in love with was disappearing, now on the cusp of fatherhood, always worrying and wondering about their future and her wellbeing. InuYasha was more thoughtful now, uncharacteristically careful. Not that he still didn’t have his moments of recklessness, but she could see how he felt like the world was on his shoulders.

She tried to shoulder his burdens with him the best she could.

He had her in bed by the time the sun went down, both of them relaxing by candlelight after spending a few hours in front of the fire. His hair was black with the new moon and she was laying on her back, watching him gently poke back at the little feet that kept kicking up inside her belly.

Kagome reached out and tangled her fingers in his dark hair, more than happy to suffer the minor discomforts of pregnancy to watch him interact with their child. He leaned back into her touch.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” she lied, gently running her thumb over the shell of his human ear. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “He’s happy.”

“He?” InuYasha wondered, turning his head in to kiss the plane of her wrist. She smiled. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Do you want a girl?”

He shrugged, leaning up to steal a kiss from her lips. The baby kicked in a quick tempo against the palm of his hand.

“Don’t care,” he murmured, tapping back at the baby. “Alive and kicking is fine.”

“Mm-hm. Well,” she poked her stomach, receiving a second foot pressed up against her in response, “he’s definitely got the kicking part down.”

InuYasha laughed and pulled back, propping his head up in his palm. He rubbed his other hand flat against her belly, drawing large circles across her skin.

“Got that right.”

She didn’t know what the baby’s gender was, of course. Discussions about using modern medicine –which InuYasha was a surprisingly staunch supporter of doing– always ended with worries about abnormalities being noticed. There was no way to know how this child would look and Kagome refused to risk little dog ears being spotted in some 3D ultrasound. It was a mess they could escape, of course, but not without the possibility of destroying a hospital if things got out of hand. She wouldn’t take the risk.

Knowing there wouldn’t be much sleeping happening tonight with the new moon and an overly excited baby in her uterus, Kagome twisted slightly in bed to reach for Izayoi’s box. InuYasha usually had it put away during the day, but he must’ve brought it out when Kagome had been getting herself comfortable in bed. 

“You want to keep going?” she asked, dragging the small chest closer so she could open it without threatening to pull a muscle in her back. “Since you won’t sleep anyway?”

“But you should,” he argued, though it didn’t sound like his heart was in it.

“Tell that to your child.”

He scoffed, rubbing the skin behind one of his ears. That baby kicked as if to punctuate her point.

“For a bit, then. If you’re not too tired.”

“I’m not,” she assured him, pulling out the last journal they’d been exploring. A thin Sanrio brand bookmark held their place, obnoxiously pink and adorable against the old parchment. “I think this is one of the spots where it jumps, anyway…”

“Jumps?”

“Yeah. She dated everything, see?” she opened the book, smoothing down the page and pulling away the marker. She pointed out the small date scrawled in the page corner. “It’s a few weeks after her last entry.”

“Huh.” He stared at the markings a little bit closer than he usually did, then shrugged. Izayoi had skipped days in her journaling before, but she’d usually found some small thing to record even if it didn’t involve his father. “Weird.”

Kagome pushed herself up with her elbows, getting in a more comfortable position for reading. InuYasha was quick to shove an extra pillow under her back for support.

She put her hand in his hair as he lay back down by her stomach, settling in to listen. Candlightly flickered dimly around them and Kagome began to read, softly tipping the journal against the great swell of her pregnancy.


	8. Chapter 8

Toga knew how to tell a story.

Izayoi had been enthralled with him for nearly two hours now, ensnared by an epic tale about an invading demon army that he’d once faced head-on in his youth. The story felt winding and endless, giving her a rare insight into his life as he spoke on the battles of men and demons alike. Some of the details were vague and glossed over, but she didn’t care to pry. He was being uncharacteristically generous tonight and she didn’t dare break his good humor.

He was halfway through a detailed dissection of the battle strategies moth demons favored when he cut off abruptly, turning his head to the forest behind him.

Izayoi fell still, her fingers frozen on the hem of her kimono. 

“You need to go home,” he said suddenly, standing up. “Now.”

Her eyes flew open wide and she took his hand when it was offered, thoughtless, letting him pull her up to her feet. 

“What? Why?” 

“Go. I’ll distract the guards,” he insisted, repeating himself when he realized he’d startled her. “Izayoi, go.”

At her hesitation, he gave her an impatient look– one that very clearly said,  _ go, or I’ll make you. _

Not wanting to discover how exactly he intended to force her to leave, she picked up the hems of her robes – in their blessedly few layers, meant for lounging in the privacy of her own rooms – and ran back towards the castle. It wasn’t a far flight from the clearing, but it wasn’t close either, and she wasn’t used to navigating the forest so quickly in the dark. She’d grown too reliant on Toga’s sudden desire to both collect and return her from her home on the nights when they met, unable to refute the fact that the guards watched her too closely these days. Her usual escape routes had become part of their normal rounds and it was far safer if Toga came for her, rather than her running out into the twilight alone to find him.

Twigs crunched beneath her bare feet as she fled down the invisible path that would lead her home, her sandals forgotten in the clearing. There was a great shifting noise in the trees behind her, bows and branches groaning as their leaves rustled loudly in the night. Whatever plans Toga had to distract the guards appeared to be in motion, but she didn’t have time to wonder about them.

Then there was a great howl that split through the night sky and she jolted, stumbling into a nearby tree and drawing herself up to it, startled by the rumbling sound that had disturbed the night. Birds cawed and screamed above her head, disturbed from their nests and waking the forest with a cacophony of rustling bushes and scurrying creatures. Something was out here with her– something large enough to wake the dead with its howl. But then she realized.

_ Gods. _

Toga was so  _ dramatic. _

She had never seen his demon form, but he’d told her before that his human body wasn’t his true nature. He claimed to be exactly as the stories portrayed him: a monstrous white dog, larger than any normal animal and bearing both fangs and claws that dwarfed a human man. A part of her had always wondered what it would take for him to reveal himself to her, but in all her wildest daydreams this scenario had never crossed her mind. 

It worked like a charm, though. Guards scattered from their usual posts at the threat of a demon, abandoning the broken wall at the back of the castle ground. She was able to slip through with complete ease, unnoticed, and drop down behind the shrubbery that lined the inside perimeter to make sure no one was out and about at this late hour.

There was a problem, though; they were.

The castle was wide awake. Servants walked the open halls in a rush, chattering amongst themselves with some urgency. Izayoi slunk lower behind the bushes, immediately terrified that someone had realized she was out of her room, but only seconds later she caught a fragment of a conversation that revealed the severity of the situation.

“–returned, at this later hour? Without sending word?”

“He must’ve rushed from Kyoto, considering what happened–”

Izayoi sucked in a gasp and then covered her mouth with both her hands, the sound startlingly loud. Her father had come home.

_ Shit. Shit, shit. _

She waited for the servants to pass, mapping out her route back to her bedroom in her mind with painstaking clarity. She would be woken for something like this. If she wasn’t quick enough, she’d be discovered missing from her rooms, which was suspect enough without the sudden appearance of a howling demon in the forest. Not that anyone could possibly link the two occurrences together, but Sadako was already suspicious enough of her. 

When the servants were finally gone, Izayoi darted out and made her way as quietly as she could down the hallways and between buildings, cutting through small gardens and paths to hasten her return home to her room. Pulse pounding, she did eventually make it to the relative safety of her gardens, speeding across the stone pathways and up to her doors with her heart in her throat. No sooner had she opened, shut them, and thrown herself face-down in her bedroll did they open again. 

“My lady,” Sadako hissed, barely audible over the drum of Izayoi’s heart in her ears. She hid her face in her pillow. “Your father has returned. You must wake up!”

_ Gods.  _ She’d made it. Somehow, she’d made it, and now all that she had to do was not fuck this up. She swallowed hard, fingers flexing on her pillow, and tried to calm herself– she could do this. All she had to do was play the role of the tired, confused princess. Everything would be fine. The worst part was over.

Izayoi dug deep and committed to the act, slowly pushing herself up off her bed and feigning oppressive sleepiness. With a fantastically choreographed movement of her head, she maneuvered her hair in a thick veil around her face and yawned, slumping her shoulders.

“Sadako?”

“Up, little lady, up.” 

It was working. Thank the Gods, it was working.

She groaned and rubbed her eyes, letting Sadako drop a candle at her bedside and she knelt down and pulled her blankets away. Everything was absolutely fine for that single, lovely moment. Izayoi played her part and her nursemaid accepted it, ready to rush her into more presentable clothes, but then–

“What in the world have you been up to?!”

All the blood drained from her face. But, to her credit, she did try and keep up the charade.

“What are you screaming about?”

“Your feet!” Sadako pointed a single accusatory finger at the offending appendages, drawing Izayoi’s gaze with it. “By the Gods, child!”

They were diritied and brown from her mad dash through the forest. A tiny twig even stuck out from underneath one big toe as if to mock her, flattened and stuck against the sole of her foot. It took every ounce of her self-control not to groan in guilt, trying her best to salvage this rapidly devolving situation.

“I was– I was just walking the gardens, I couldn’t sleep–”

Sadako rapped her once over the head and Izayoi whimpered, covering her hair with her hands.

“I don’t have time for your lies,” her caretaker snapped, rising to her feet with the sort of sharpened disappointment that struck deeper than any blade. “You miserable, spoiled child. Get up and make yourself presentable.”

Knowing she was likely to get dragged up by her ear if she didn’t comply, Izayoi dropped the act and got to her dirty feet as quickly as she could, eyes downcast in shame. Sadako said nothing while she dressed her in more appropriate robes, her silence more punishing than any chastisement could ever be.

“I’ll deal with you later,” was the only thing she said before shoving her out into the halls, leaving her to fend for herself. 

Izayoi bit her lip and folded her hands in front of her, carefully hiding her unclean feet in the hems of her long skirts before focusing on the issue at hand.

Her father had returned.

Despite all the wild twists and turns this night had taken, at least she could be glad for the root cause. Forcing herself not to think about Sadako’s impending wrath or the whereabouts of the giant white dog that was likely leading her men on a frantic hunt, Izayoi hurried through the mansion to try and intercept her father before he arrived. It seemed the only warning the castle had received regarding his return was the travel party itself, seen approaching in the distance from the high watchtowers. Perhaps it was the galloping of their hooves that had tipped Toga off, or maybe it was the castle suddenly coming to life in the middle of the night. She made a mental note to ask him the next time they saw each other.

There was plenty of activity in the castle courtyard when she arrived, but her father was nowhere to be seen among his men. Torchlight illuminated all those who remained: the stableboys with sleepy eyes who tended the horses, the servants emptying carts and carriages, and both samurai and guards conversing in busy huddles as they came down from their night ride. It was a lively scene, somewhat crowded in nature. Her father had returned with more men than he’d left with. Many of these faces were not familiar to her.

“Is that you, my daughter?” 

She turned towards the voice, noticing that she’d been standing in front of the main entryway to the mansion. Lord Mizuno stood in the open doors, smiling, looking far grayer and wearier than she ever remembered him being. But the wrinkles he wore were welcoming and kind, his arms held open to her.

“Father!” she smiled and embraced him in turn, truly glad to see him home safe. He held her close. “Why have you come home? Is everything all right?”

“Is everything all right?” he asked incredulously, pulling away from her and holding her by the shoulders, looking at her as if she’d just asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “That’s the question I should be asking you. When I heard what happened– oh, my old heart, Izayoi, when I heard you’d made it home safely...” He squeezed her arms affectionately. “I couldn’t neglect seeing you a moment longer.”

_ Of course. _

She’d been so worried about the people at home that she’d forgotten about her family abroad.

“Oh, father,” she smiled, drawing close to hug him again. He tipped his chin over the top of her head. “You didn’t need to worry.”

“I quite disagree,” he murmured, holding her close a moment more before he finally let her go. “Come. If you’re not too tired, we’ve much to discuss.”

He smiled down at his daughter and she smiled back up, well aware that she would have no problems staying up late in the night for the sake of conversation.

“Whatever about?”

“You’ve survived a demon and escaped another and you wonder what I want to discuss?”

She laughed softly, hiding her smile behind her hand.

“I’m afraid the stories aren’t as thrilling as you may have been told.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said decidedly, “Come, let’s get out of this night.”

Acquiescing to his requests, she followed him inside and enjoyed the rest of this eventful night with her father. 


	9. Chapter 9

Her father had a great many things to say about her future now that he’d returned home.

None of it was particularly surprising. While they’d corresponded frequently by letter, it was one thing to write assurances rather than to give them in person, and now she felt more watched than ever. He wanted to know the state of her studies, her art, her abilities with helping manage the household, and many other menial things that Lady Mizuno was more than happy to sing her praises about. They weren’t particularly prying things, but Izayoi sensed an undercurrent in his conversations. She could guess what the reason might be.

Yet he never spoke of marriage, telling them only that the new samurai he’d brought home with him were for their protection in light of the growing threat of demonkind. He made sure to impress on Izayoi that she should be kind to them and understanding, and that she should behave as any young noblewoman was expected to. Which included not wandering outside the castle grounds.

She agreed, as any good daughter would do, and heeded her father’s words. Except when Toga came to her door at night and whisked her away, more frequently now than ever before, easily bypassing the samurai that were meant to hunt his kind down.

“I’ll be leaving the area for some time,” he warned one dark night, standing with her in the gardens as he returned her to her rooms. The mansion around them was peacefully silent. “A month, perhaps.”

It was proving very hard not to be disappointed.

“Where to?”

“Nowhere of interest.”

“Liar,” she accused, and he grinned.

“It’s no matter. Go on inside. I’ll try not to be away long, but until then…”

“Don’t go out into the forest?” she guessed, and he nodded.

“You have a bad habit of meeting with demons whenever you do.”

She made a face at him and he grinned wider, squeezing her hand once before he let it go.

“Goodbye, Izayoi.”

She sighed and left his side, sliding open the shoji to her room and casting him one last look before he leapt up into the sky. She tried to commit the image of him to memory, standing so softly under the moonlight in the middle of her gardens.

“Goodbye, Toga.”

Life proved to be painfully boring with him gone. Distracting, too, in a strange way. She often caught herself wondering about him now that she couldn’t trouble him with her questions, imagining strange scenarios that might’ve called him away from her. Many of them featured Kaoru as a prominent villain, but other times he was merely attending to whatever boring duties she assumed a daiyoukai must have. If he was like a lord, did he not have to suffer all the same things her father did? Courts and politics and treaties, managing land and vassals?

While she daydreamed about the life he led outside of her, she failed to pay attention to her own.

It was becoming apparent that there were more reasons that Lord Mizuno had returned home other than Izayoi. The samurai he’d brought with him had more uses than hunting unknown demons, after all, and there were tensions rising with other clans to the west, disputes laid over land and power. The intricate details were things Izayoi would usually discover by purposefully eavesdropping on open-door meetings at opportune moments, or through dissecting the various rumors that flit through the household via servants. She was only a daughter, and therefore not entitled to know these things; once, she had made it her mission to find them out regardless. But now? Now she daydreamed and became dangerously unaware of the happenings of her own world.

It would be her undoing. The only thing that might’ve saved her was her willingness to stay inside the castle walls, but alas, demons often grew bold when humans grew restless.

The same night that Setsuna no Takemaru led her father’s army away to fight the battles of men, Izayoi set to go to bed early, taking advantage of the fact that she didn’t have any reason to stay up late anymore. The sky was clear and the air was pleasantly cool, the first indication that summer might soon start its long, stubborn death into autumn.

She sat in front of her low vanity with the shoji open, brushing through her long hair as she readied herself for bed. Toga’s kanzashi sat on the table in front of her, waiting to be used to bundle her hair for the night. Nothing else seemed to keep her hair from messing in the middle of the night. 

Her reflection stared back at her in a small circular mirror, wistful and distant as she let her mind wander. 

Then, out of nowhere, something stabbed her in the nose.

“Ack!”

Thoughtless, she tried to slap the unseen offender away and only ended up hitting herself in the face. The pain was immediate and fast, a clear indicator that she was not dreaming after all.

“Izayoi-sama!”

She whimpered at her self-inflicted wound, holding her face in her hands with sharp tears pricking her eyes. A tiny little man jumped up and down on her knuckles in front of her eyes, frantic and flailing.

“Izayoi-sama, you must go! You must hide! Gosaku is on his way!”

Admittedly, she was having a hard time keeping up with what was happening. 

“Gosaku?” she repeated blearily, words muffled in her hands. “Who- who are you?”

A demon, she knew; he had to be. But who? Had he _bit_ her?

“I am Myoga, miss, a loyal vassal of the great Inu no Taisho,” he said quickly, voice hushed as he finally stopped hopping on her hands. “He charged me with keeping an eye on you in his absence, but you are in great danger, my lady, you must get up! You must hide!”

“Danger?” She stared at the little man, wildly confused. Myoga hopped from her hands to her shoulder, tugging on her hair. “Hide? Where? This is my home.”

It seemed ridiculous. Who would dare come for her in her own room? But she did grab the kanzashi in front of her, holding it in a fist.

“Please, my lady–”

Then there was a breeze on her back, a chill down her spine, and a hand on her shoulder. A man leaned over her reflection in the mirror and she watched the blood drain from her face, his lips turning up in a sickly smile as he met her gaze in the polished glass.

“Hello, little pet.”

His voice was velvet across skin, venom dripping from every syllable. She shivered, staring back at the deep red eyes that leveled on her in the mirror. He wasn’t like Kaoru; there was nothing odd about his beauty or abnormal about his presence. Though he crouched now, she could tell he was tall, his skin a burnished sort of bronze and his eyes glinting like rubies. Over one shoulder a thick braid hung, dark hair wound neatly over his worn armor, and she sucked in a breath to steady herself. Everything about him was striking and sharp, handsome in a way few men could be. But it was the sort of beauty that preceded danger, like the colorful markings of a beast or critter. Though his hand felt like silk around her waist, it only served to make her stomach roll.

She swallowed hard, dropping her hand - and the kanzashi in her fist, unnoticed - into her lap.

When had he put his hand around her waist?

“...Gosaku?” she breathed, testing her own bravery.

His brows lifted in surprise. It was a beautifully smooth movement.

“You know my name? Well,” his gaze turned from her reflection and fell properly on her, his lips too close to her cheek. “I suppose we can skip introductions, then.”

When his grin turned wicked she opened her mouth to protest, to scream, to do _anything_ , but he clapped his hand over her mouth to stop it. In an instant she was ripped from her vanity, pulled away from the safe glow of the candlelight and dragged out into the dark night, soaring up into the sky. 

This time, the kidnapping wasn’t hyperbolic.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warnings: sexual harassment; discussions of non-consensual themes and situations; abuse against women; spiders**

Once, Izayoi had asked Toga how to tell daiyoukai apart from their lesser youkai counterparts.

 _“Well, human form for one,”_ he’d answered, the memory of his words ringing in her ears, _“But the most powerful of us are capable of unassisted flight.”_

_“You can fly?”_

_“Yes.”_

Gosaku was one of those daiyoukai, it turned out.

He had her under his arm, carrying her like a sack of rice against his side. It gave her a terrifying view of the forests rushing by underneath them and she wanted nothing more than to be in Toga’s arms, where she wouldn’t have to watch the world turn and worry about being dropped at any second. Even if it was unlikely that Gosaku would send her plummeting to her death, it was a thought she couldn’t chase out of her head, only worsening with every lurch her stomach gave.

Her hair whipped around her in a tangled, uncontrolled mess as they soared over trees and fields, traveling so far that the landscape changed beneath them. What had been forests became swamplands, and then the rocky terrain of mountain ranges. He was taking her farther inland, far from any lands she’d ever traveled. The speed of it alone had her gripping his forearm, his banded muscles cutting in harshly underneath her ribs.

If she weren’t so afraid, she might’ve been sick.

Still, the shock hadn’t rendered her completely thoughtless. Her free hand was trapped in the folds of her sleeves, knuckles white around Toga’s kanzashi.

It would be a dire mistake to try and stab him now, she knew. The possibility of him stopping her aside, there was their height to consider. If what Toga had said was true, paralyzing him would actually send her plummeting to her death. There wasn’t any question about that. But once they landed?

If she were brave enough - or reckless enough - she could try to make a run for it. If he didn’t kill her for the attempt.

“My lady!”

She jolted in Gosaku’s arm at the unexpected cry and he just grunted, adjusting her roughly. 

Myoga’s tiny little voice clung to the edges of her ear, unnoticed by her captor, and she realized that the little demon had hopped along for the ride. The pinprick of his tiny little fingers in her earlobe had been missed entirely.

“Do not do anything rash, Izayoi-sama, I shall fetch my Master straight away! He will come to your aid!”

She couldn’t respond. Perhaps Gosaku couldn’t hear this little flea in her ear, but he would definitely hear her.

“Best of luck,” the little flea said, and it sounded distinctly like he was relieved to be leaving her.

_Coward!_

Myoga was gone as quickly as he had been noticed, releasing his tiny needle nails from her ear and disappearing on the wind.

It was just then that the flight began to slow, taking a sharp downturn as their destination rushed up to meet them. Izayoi couldn’t stop herself from screaming, dropping the kanzashi into the depths of her sleeves so she could cover her face with her arm.

But of course, she felt nothing more than a simple footstep down when they reached the ground.

Gosaku roughly put her back on her feet, but it wasn’t a second later that he had her off them again, twisting her and sweeping her up over his shoulder. She grunted as his shoulder - and the metal plate on it - dug deep in her ribs, sending a shockwave of pain through to her spine. She choked on it, squirming as his hand locked her legs against his chest.

Without so much as a shred of regard for her comfort or pain, her captor began to walk the rocky mountain trail they had landed in.

“Hey!”

Her soul, previously left behind in her rooms, caught up to her body in that moment, reinvigorated by her return to solid ground. Gosaku didn’t respond to her and she tried to wrench her legs free from his grasp, pushing up against the plate armor under her belly.

“Let me go!”

His grey armor was banded around his chest like Toga’s, but it was decidedly less spiked and left his upper back open for her to pound her fists against, his dark hair braided in a short rope over his opposite shoulder. In the dark it was still hard for her to get a good look at him, but she honestly didn’t care what he looked like. She just wanted to be away from him.

He only laughed darkly at her protests, the hand that had been on the backside of her knee sliding down and then up underneath her kimono, over rough skin and falling on her thigh.

“Be careful. You might give me the wrong idea.”

Justified anger flared in her chest, matched with an intense, infuriated heat that bloomed on her cheeks. She kicked, trying to shake his hand off of her, but his fingers only inched higher and _squeezed_ , the tips of his claws brushing over places that had never been touched before, threatening to wander between her closed legs and slide over the inside of her thigh.

Suddenly all her fury was black and humiliated, a sort of shame blossoming in her chest that she had never felt before. Helpless, hateful tears pricked at her eyes and she stopped kicking, pushing up off his shoulder again with her hands on his pauldrons. It was a futile attempt to try and slide herself farther away from his touch.

“Don’t!”

“Why not? Surely that dog has gotten a taste of you.”

She slammed her fist down on the back of his shoulder, despite knowing it hurt her more than it hurt him. He was still squeezing her leg.

“No!”

She didn’t mean it as an answer to the proposition, but that was how Gosaku understood it. 

“Really?” he actually sounded interested in that, and it made her want to hurl. “Well… I suppose I could put that to the test.”

“Stop it!”

His laugh made her skin crawl and she wanted nothing more to have claws so she could rip his head off his shoulders. But, mercifully, his head slid back down— but it stayed on her bare skin, pressed down over a smooth patch that remained unmarred among her scars.

“Then be a good girl and stop struggling,” his voice dropped to somewhere darker, far more dangerous. “That’s the only warning you get.”

Desperately ashamed, she did relent, though that only blackened her shame further. She wanted to fight; she wanted to stab this bastard as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t change her situation much if she managed it. Even if she did paralyze him with the kanzashi, she had no idea where she was. There was no telling how long the effects would last and if that would give her time to escape anywhere worthwhile— a shrine, maybe, or a temple. He would just find her again, and she was sure he’d be far less gracious than he was being right now when he did.

 _Toga’s on his way,_ she reminded herself, remembering Myoga’s advice not to do anything rash. _Just stay alive until then._

Gods, she’d never wanted to see him more than she did at this very moment.

Gosaku carried her in silence after that, traveling up a path she couldn’t see; with her current position, she could only see where they had been. The mountains around them grew rockier until the vegetation was less than sparse, hardly a tree in sight as the temperature dropped with elevation. She was shivering when their pathway finally plateaued, beginning a short decline before the mountain itself swallowed them whole.

Izayoi realized in horror that he was dragging her into some sort of cave, and it wasn’t shallow in any definition of the word. They just kept going down, further into the dark, until the entrance disappeared and the darkness engulfed her.

_You’re going to die._

She was an idiot. She should’ve stabbed him when she had the chance.

It stayed dark for some time, Gosaku navigating the blackness with ease. Izayoi was beginning to question whether or not she had gone blind when the world began to creep back into her vision, a soft blue light giving definition to the stalagmites that appeared around her. They were deep within the belly of the mountain now, stale air and condensation dripping down all around them. 

The light didn’t get much brighter as they went, but it was bright enough that Izayoi could make out her immediate surroundings. Tall, layered rock formations stretched toward the ceiling in spikes, paired with the same formations that hung down from above, dripping water and minerals into small pools in the ground. Some of those pools glowed with unnatural light, different from the one illuminating their path now, but Izayoi knew that nothing good could come of them. Not in a demon’s den.

Next, she noticed the spiderwebs.

They were sparse at first, nothing more than the natural webs that a small insect might make. But as they walked this worn path, the webs became increasingly more prominent and layered, threaded with intricate designs that couldn’t have been made by any regular spider. Their expansive nets grew larger as they traveled closer to the light, eventually spreading so wide that they layered over others and engulfed the cave walls completely. It got to the point where their silk bands were as thick as a sailor’s rope, hanging down in large canopies between the stalactites. 

Izayoi focused her gaze on the path below her when the cocoons began to appear, most of them too large and long to belong to anything other than man.

The scattered skeletons that lined the edges of the path weren’t a much prettier sight.

_He’s a spider demon._

Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t tried to fight back. Was this the demon that Toga had spoken about? The one he’d taken the fang from? Would its effects even work on him?

Her thoughts were abruptly cut short when Gosaku’s hands moved and she was shouldered off of him, put on her own two feet for the second time since he’d captured her. It was dizzying enough that she didn’t have time to think before he grabbed her by her hair, palming the back of her head to direct her as he spun her around. She cried out at the shock of the pain, reaching back to grab at his wrists as he pushed her forward.

“Let me go!”

The words were out of her mouth before she could think to staunch them, though they weren’t particularly important. Just futile. She was wasting her breath. Predictably, he ignored her and kept her stumbling forward, his only answer a sharp shake of his arm that made her cry out. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, blacking out the cavern of spiderwebs he’d brought her into.

“Aren’t you a noblewoman?” he sneered mockingly, “Where are your manners? I’ve brought you into my home.”

She didn’t respond to that, still trying to pry his fingers off of her head. He brought her up short, though, and she nearly tripped over her own feet before she managed to get her bearings.

“Meet my father, Tsuchigumo.”

When she finally opened her eyes, eight beady eyes stared back.

She couldn’t help it— she screamed, trying to recoil but held firmly in place by Gosaku. A spider with a head the size of her entire body unfurled four of its long, spindling legs from underneath its body, stretching them out on either side of them. It lifted itself, looming over them as saliva dripped from its mouth, falling in large, sickly green drops that burned the rock in front of her. The cave floor between them was made of waves and hills, evidence of unthinkable things that she refused to consider.

When it opened its jaws she slammed her eyes shut, unable to control her fear. There was a noise that followed that could only be described as _dripping_ , a squelch of fluids and flesh that Izayoi was left unable to recognize. 

“What have you brought me, Gosaku? Another meal?”

There was breath on her face. The spider was _speaking_.

“Not food, Father, but a gift all the same.” Gosaku reeled her back into his chest with a sharp tug, grabbing her chin and forcing her face up. “Open your eyes, woman.”

She tried to shake her head against his hand, her protest nothing more than a few sharp whimpers against him.

“Let me see you, little fly,” the spider said and then there were claws in her scalp, dragging shortly until she cried out and opened her eyes.

A man stared at her, his face only a few inches from her own.

A man whose body was sticking out of the giant spider’s mouth.

She screamed again and Gosaku laughed, releasing his claws from her scalp. The spider demon’s face split open in a wide, wicked grin and he moved closer, suspended in the air like a serpent preparing to strike, all his teeth bared as he hovered close to her face. Gray hair spilled down his body in a tangled waterfall. 

Tsuchigumo smelled like the fields after Kaoru’s flowers had been torn away. Death, sick and sweet, warm and heavy. Izayoi swallowed hard, trying not to breathe as she was forced to look upon him. His skin was the sort of pale that happened after a long, cold winter without sunlight, his arms and hands long and prying, a human counterpart to the spindling legs of a spider. There was absolutely nothing beautiful about him. His mouth was too wide and his nose too small, the entirety of his eyes an endless void of black. Two red, narrow markings struck down vertically on his face from his hairline to the narrow slope of his jaw, interrupted only by his eyes and the corners of his mouth.

“This is the Inu no Taisho’s pet,” Gosaku said, his voice velvet over ice, “It seems that Kaoru’s been telling the truth.”

Izayoi barely heard him speak. She was trying too hard not to have a complete meltdown, eyes downcast as the creature continued to examine her. As if to amplify her terrible thoughts, the mouth that Tsuchigumo hung out of dripped with more venom, carving more curves into the stone floor. It was terrifying enough as it was, but then she caught sight of his fangs, arched high above his human torso and—

 _No,_ she realized. 

It was just a fang. A single fang.

_It is him._

The great spider youkai was missing the fang that should sharpen the right side of his face, leaving only a rounded, harmless stub of a pincer. And as his massive body shifted, his human torso twisting to look at her from a new angle, she caught a soft blue glint of light near his bulbous rear, previously hidden behind his bodies.

A huge streak of white ivory embedded in his backside, pinning him to the cave wall.

Had Toga trapped him here?

“Good, good,” Tsuchigumo mused, moving again and blocking his trappings out of sight. She recoiled as far as she could as his black eyes bore down on her, leaning in as far as he was capable. Could he not take a complete human form while being trapped to the cave wall?

“His flea ran off to go fetch him,” Gosaku was saying, and Izayoi realized with horror that he had noticed Myoga. “Shouldn’t be long, now.”

Of course a spider would know about all the insects around him.

Tsuchigumo laughed and Izayoi cringed, pulling into herself. 

“When he’s dead,” the spider mused, fantasizing, “You can do what you like with her.”

Izayoi went cold.

“Oh, I planned to.”

Gosaku yanked again, eliciting another cry as he dragged her away from his father and to another side of the cavern, over the bones of dead humans and under the expansive webs that covered every wall and rock. Then there was that noise again, squelching and shifting, and when she looked back Tsuchigumo’s human form had disappeared back inside his insect body.

Izayoi couldn’t help but miss Kaoru and her flowers at that moment.

“Now, little pet…” Gosaku let her go with a shove, sending her stumbling forward. “You have a choice.”

He grabbed one of her wrists and held it between them, forcing her to stand up straight. She felt her bones crackle under the pressure, cringing slightly.

“You can behave like the gracious noblewoman you’re supposed to be,” he said, reaching out to a spiderweb on the wall and drawing silk from it, pulling it out between them, “Or I cocoon you, and we’ll see if you survive long enough to see that bastard come try and save you.”

When her response didn’t come quickly enough, he squeezed hard on her wrist and she cried out, nodding thoughtlessly.

“Yes! Yes, I’ll…” He stared at her, his dark eyes reflecting the strange light of these caves. She hated herself. “I’ll behave.”

“That’s a good girl.”

She wanted to spit in his face.

He took his silk and wrapped it around her wrists, binding her to the wall before he pushed her down on the rock floor and smirked, letting her catch herself on the rough stone. Her entire body ached.

“Better settle in, little pet.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger warnings: sexual harassment; discussions and descriptions of non-consensual themes and situations; gore; abuse against women; graphic depictions of violence.**

Izayoi couldn’t feel her legs.

It didn’t pose a significant problem, considering the fact she didn’t need them because she couldn’t go anywhere, but it was uncomfortable, and she only suffered through it because she knew that if she _could_ feel them, the pain would be far more intense than her current, numb discomfort.

She’d been kneeling on stone for… days, likely. It was impossible to know how much time had passed since Gosaku had bound her here. Without daylight or moonlight to judge the passage of time, Izayoi could only gauge the days by how often she felt the need to sleep— which, at this point, seemed constant despite being impossible. Every time she closed her eyes there would inevitably be something that shocked her back awake. A crawling spider across her bare feet. Her legs slipping out from underneath her, sending her careening into the layer of human bodies, skulls and bones that lined the cavern’s floor, startling her awake with a stiff jolt. Some of the bodies hadn’t been completely stripped free of flesh, after all, left half-eaten for unknown reasons, and it was all she could do to keep herself and her small space of rock corpse-free. 

Their remains were better left for the natural spiders and insects to feast upon - which they did, quite zealously, gifting her with vivid memories of decomposition that no one would ever wish to have. Spiders crawling out of limp mouths and sunken eye sockets, centipedes slithering up leathered nostrils, tiny beetles making their hovels inside ears and skulls. Insects rustling, creaking, scratching over bone so that even when she did close her eyes and keep her balance, all she could hear were the sounds of the dead.

But the smaller insects feasting was nothing compared to the much larger one.

Tsuchigumo couldn’t leave his cavern - which Izayoi surmised had once been his burrow, evidenced by the thick layers of webs on every wall and ceiling, and the single, narrow mouth of the cave that sat on a steep incline - so Gosaku would often leave her here alone with his father, off to fetch meals for the day. For his part, Tsuchigumo didn’t so much as look at her; since she wasn’t food, he didn’t seem to pay her any mind. The both of them stayed where they had been bound, separated by a small, deep well of water that had been bored into the middle of his cavern, from which he drank as he pleased and basked in the strange blue light that emanated from its depths.

When Gosaku would return with his father’s meals, that was when Izayoi wished the most that she could simply cease to exist and disappear. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if he consumed his food the same way any spider would, but he didn’t do his victims the courtesy of cocoons or quick-acting venom.

No, he preferred them screaming. Young or old, male or female, child or adult. So long as they suffered, the manner of their deaths didn’t matter. Just that they screamed.

Their voices carved permanent scars on the inside of her skull.

It was a cycle. Gosaku dragged crying victims in as they pleaded for their lives. Izayoi tried to shut the world out as they began to scream, ripped away from their families and friends, sent to be devoured or left behind to watch their loved ones perish. She couldn’t shield herself from the screaming, the sound of their bones clattering to the floor. It had to be a daily occurrence, repeated at agonizing length in front of her eyes.

Three times she’d lived the nightmare of watching a demon’s feast.

Three days she’d waited, and Toga was nowhere to be seen.

How she managed not to crumble into an unconscious mess was a question she’d likely never be able to find the answer for.

As for her own nourishment, there was only whatever Gosaku decided to give her from the belongings of his victims. She ate scarcely any of it, unable to stomach the knowledge of what had happened to its previous owners, but their bamboo flasks provided enough drinking water that she didn’t die of thirst.

Not that she drank much of it after her first experience of being dragged out of the burrow to relieve herself in the dark caves, watched openly and mercilessly by Gosaku the entire time.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was a toy to him. Most of the time she knelt forgotten in her corner, legs and arms numb from lack of movement and blood flow, and he lounged in a web canopy that stretched over the jagged ceiling above Tsuchigumo’s head, thick enough that she could barely see his figure through the silk. Other times, though…

“Drink.”

He crouched in front of her, boots cracking over the bones beneath his feet as he forced a ceramic bottle of sake up to her lips. His hands were still bloody from his last meal. She tried to pull away from him, biting down on her bottom lip to keep her mouth closed, but he had her webbed bonds entwined around the same fingers that held the drink. It was effortless to pull her in.

“Now, now…” He was smiling, all sharp teeth and wicked amusement. “I thought you humans liked this swill.”

Turning her face away from him only earned her a crushing hand on her chin, yanking her forward over his lap until his face was in front of hers, his fingers crawling up to slip between her lips and forcibly open her mouth. His grip was steel, the bones in her jaw scraping underneath his touch.

“St-Stop—” 

Gosaku tipped the dead man’s bottle down her throat until the world went black.

She woke to the sound of Tsuchigumo’s fourth feast - a piercing scream, tearing flesh and squelching blood, someone wailing - and tried to shut out the world again, to return to that darkness she’d been forced into, preferring the aching blackness of her inebriation over the realities of her world. 

Somewhere between that meal and the next, Gosaku took her up by her hair and forced her to her feet. It felt as if she’d stumbled onto a bed of hot needles, but the pain was distant, dulled by a lack of feeling. She knew her knees were likely black and purple with bruises by now.

“Six days and still no dog,” he said, giving her a rough shake. She whimpered. “Maybe he doesn’t care about you as much as that wretch said.”

_Six days?_

Either she’d missed some of Tsuchigumo’s meals, or her assumptions about their frequency had been wrong. 

“Then let me go,” she bit out, but her voice was gravel raked over stone, closer to a hoarse plea than a demand.

Gosaku laughed, taking the leash of her bonds and tearing her free from the wall. It left her wrists bound without a lead, but that wasn’t much comfort with the way his hand clamped over her forearm.

“Nice try.” 

There was the sickening sound of regurgitation across the cavern, which could only mean Tsuchigumo was stretching his human form out from inside his demon body. When she looked, he was posed in midair between his pincers, chin cradled on one fist and his elbow propped up in the other hand, lending an appearance of leaning across a flat surface.

“Have patience, my son. The spiders say the dragon of the valley has picked a fight with him,” he said, turning Gosaku’s attention. “Given chase. That old bitch of his has gotten involved.”

Izayoi didn’t understand the meaning, but Gosaku smirked, apparently amused by the news.

“You hear that, little pet?” 

Izayoi tried to tug her arm out of his grasp, but he just squeezed her harder, turning his attention back to her with a flick of his braid. She tried to force the panicked thoughts of Toga being challenged by dragons out of her mind, determined not to give into fear. He was strong. He would be fine.

“It sounds like we have plenty of time to kill.”

The tone of his voice froze her in her spot, thick with dark insinuations, and before she could protest he pulled her in and she was tripping over skulls on the floor. Falling straight into his armored chest as his arm caged around her waist.

“No—!”

Her voice was lost when their feet left the ground, a rope of silk summoned from the ceiling to wrap around his wrist and pull them up into his personal canopy. Tsuchigumo was laughing loud enough that she felt her shock turn black at the sound, the prospects of her future suddenly dire as Gosaku pulled her up into his beds. 

“Don’t!”

Her feet and the hem of her kimono stuck to the webs when he put her down, but that didn’t stop her from beating her twin fists against his chest, trying to shove him away with the broadside of her forearms and wrists. His laugh sent a sharp shock wave all the way down to her stomach. 

“You want to fight? Fine.” Roughly, he grabbed her arm, sliding his claws between her wrists to break the silky, sticking bonds. “Should be fun.”

He shoved her down with the heel of his palm to her chest, sending her stumbling back. When her soles ripped up off the web canopy, she could feel her skirts tear around her legs, the tangle of fabric tripping her onto her back and leaving her legs bare from the knee down. Gosaku loomed over her and she tried to pull up to escape him, jerking forward only to immediately be pulled back. 

_No._

She was stuck. It was a web and she was the fly stuck inside. 

“There’s a way out, still,” the spider demon pointed out, crouching low at her side. The canopy bounced with his movement, then tension shifting beneath them both. “I’ll even give you a head start.”

An angry, shameful rush of heat bloomed across her face as she realized his meaning. He was right; if she slipped out of her clothes, she could likely escape this trap— at least momentarily. The webbing was caught mostly on her kimono, not her skin. Even her hands had slipped inside the folds of her sleeves when she’d fallen back, leaving them free from sticky trappings.

He laughed cruelly at her expression, taking an errant strand of her long hair in his hands and pulling it up, letting it slide between his claws. It didn’t seem to tangle easily in the canopy, sliding out of its silk designs.

“Well, pet?” He asked, voice heavy with implication. “What will it be?”

There were three options. First, to disregard every notion of modesty and humiliate herself in a futile chase; second, to simply accept her future and eventual rape in the interest of surviving; or third, to fight.

Her hands were free and Toga’s kanzashi still lay heavy and undiscovered in the bottom of her sleeves, a last ditch effort she could use to protect herself. It was incredibly unlikely that it would work on the elder spider demon himself, but she figured there was at least half a chance it might still work on Gosaku, even if it only slowed him down. Tsuchigumo couldn’t chase her. The odds that she would actually be able to make it out of the dark caves alone were slim, but she’d rather go down fighting than just lay back and let him have his way with her. Even if Toga was coming, she couldn’t rely on him to arrive in time to save her from this.

Izayoi made her decision, steeled herself, and spit in Gosaku’s face.

His rage was immediate. 

“Wretch!”

When he moved over her and pinned her hips between his legs, she reached down into her sleeves and took her last chance in hand. His claws were tangled in her hair, pulling her up and arching her neck, fangs scraping across her pulse as he threatened to bleed her on his fangs.

“You’ll live to regret that, _whore._ ”

But then Tsuchigumo hissed and Gosaku froze on top of her, a strange pulse of warmth reverberating in the damp cave.

“Take your hands off of her.”

Izayoi could’ve started sobbing right then and there.

_Toga._

She couldn’t see him, not with her hair torn back and her eyes forced on the ceiling, but she could hear him and that was more than enough to send shock waves of relief through her body. Tears pricked at her eyes as she felt her captor peel himself off of her, neck freed from his thick breath as he rose to his feet with his hand still tangled in her hair. It lifted her off the canopy, but only her; she could feel fabric tearing, strips of her kimono left behind in the webs as he ripped her free. It left her back exposed in long, thin parts, the cloth tattered and torn like a battle flag on the field. 

She didn’t care, though. Not for her torn sleeping clothes, not for her modesty, and not about her scars. She cared for him— for Toga. For how he stood in the mouth of the cave, washed in soft blue light, eyes glinting like daggers in the dark, a stony expression arranging his features into something she’d never seen before. Anger and rage and hate, grief and guilt and shame.

 _It’s not your fault,_ she wanted to scream, but common sense kept her mouth shut.

“Look who showed up.” 

“Gosaku.” It was a warning said as a name, but it’s target didn’t seem to care.

“It’s not me you need to care about.”

Toga’s eyes went to Tsuchigumo, now fully in his spider form, but his expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“You’re still alive?”

Tsuchigumo hissed loud enough to dislodge small stones that had been caught up in the ceiling’s webs, sending them raining down onto the ground. Some fell in the cavern’s basin with small splashes of light and water.

“No thanks to you,” Gosaku said. “But now that you’re here, you can unseal him.”

“Oh?” 

Toga was predictably unmoved by the demand. Gosaku sneered and let his hand fall out of Izayoi’s hair, instead reaching down and grabbing her by one bruised wrist and yanking hard— she cried out in shock, suddenly struck with the realization that he was _trying_ to hurt her. Now that the bait had been spent and the target caught, she was in more danger than she had been before. Suddenly, she was expendable.

To punctuate that point, Gosaku ripped her to her feet and dragged her to the edge of the canopy. She fought the whole way, futilely trying to wrench her wrist out of his grasp and drag her feet in the webs until he swung her out over the precipice, that grip suddenly the only thing stopping her from tumbling over the ledge. 

She could’ve sworn she heard someone growl, but she was too caught up with the sight of Tsuchigumo’s jaws open wide beneath her to find out who. 

How many people had she seen die this way?

“Unseal him,” Gosaku demanded again, "or watch her die.”

When his answer wasn’t immediate, Izayoi suffered. One moment she was balancing on a tightrope above a spider demon jaws, and the next her feet were out from under her and—

The pain was white-hot and immediate, shocked straight up her arm and ricocheting back down from her wrist into her chest. Gosaku held her out in the open air in one hand, dangling all her weight on her shoulder and elbow in a dead-hang above his father’s gaping jaws. 

With a single shake of his arm, she felt her shoulder slide out of its joint. 

She heard herself scream from outside her body.

“Stop!”

She could barely hear Toga’s voice over the ringing in her ears, the edges of her vision shocked with white and quickly being chased in by black. But she fought for her consciousness, trying to reach up with her other arm to grab Gosaku and relieve the weight from what was only muscle and tendon. It was a fruitless attempt and soon all she could do was hang there, feeling her own body tear itself apart, forced to hold herself still to prevent gravity from making a worse mess of her. 

Through her tears, she could see a blurry image of Toga hesitating in the mouth of the cave. 

“She’ll be dead before you can catch her, dog,” Gosaku was saying. “Don’t try anything stupid. Unless you really don’t care, in which case...”

“Enough.”

Izayoi blinked away the tears in her eyes, reaching up to hold her own arm to try and put more pressure on her elbow than her shoulder. It didn’t prove very effective.

_Idiot._

He was going to get killed over her. She’d seen what Tsuchigumo’s venom could do, and once he was free…

“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Toga, don’t.”

She wasn’t worth all this trouble.

“Shut up, you little bitch.”

She didn’t hear Gosaku, barely felt him clamp his claws down on her wrist. He didn’t matter. She didn’t matter. Her pain didn’t matter. What mattered was getting Toga out of this alive. 

Again, Izayoi had three options. First, to let Toga die for her; second, to die for Toga; or third, to fight.

When his golden eyes found hers, she dropped her free arm, letting it fall in the folds of her sleeve as she begged for him to understand what she was about to do. Toga stared back, and she prayed that she could find the same sort of bravery that he had. That he could lend her some of his own.

Then she started yelling.

“You’re a coward!” She whipped her head up, staring up at Gosaku with a new sort of fire in her eyes. “You can’t even face him on your own! Hiding behind your father— behind me? What sort of demon are you?!”

It worked.

Agony flashed across her vision as he hauled her up, merciless, wrenching her back over the safety of the canopy to grab her face and draw her in, his long fangs protruding over his lips. The pain was intense, but her heart was thundering in her chest, dampening the agony with a wave of adrenaline.

“What did you say to me, you fucking—?!”

She swung her fist hard against his chest. After days of her futile fighting, he didn’t even bother to try and stop her, and that was his undoing. This time, her fist struck true; this time, she _sank_ into him.

The point of the kanzashi slid into his skin and scraped over bone as it burrowed into the small space between his collarbone and the edge of his armor, blood gurgling beneath her hand as she pressed down as hard as she could. When she felt something crack and fracture inside him she only bore down harder, tight and tense as she leaned all her weight onto him.

_Just work._

She couldn’t look him in the face, no matter how much she hated him. There was a terrible bubbling sound coming out of his mouth.

_Just fucking work._

And then there was a breeze by her hair, another sound of flesh tearing. Gosaku made an anguished, sputtering groan deep in his throat, blood spilling over the corners of his lips and dripping down onto Izayoi’s fingers. 

“Close your eyes,” Toga said, his hand falling onto the small of her back.

She did, and then he tore Gosaku’s head straight off his shoulders.

It was an awful noise, lacking any other description than wet cracking. Izayoi was quite certain she’d never forget it, the same way she would never be able to forget the warm feeling of blood on her face immediately after. It hit her in a heavy spray, all across her face and chest, matting her hair against her cheek. 

Gosaku’s hand, formerly paralyzed around her wrist, went slack. She could feel him slide off the fang in her hand, slick and heavy and _squelching_ , and then there were two soft thuds as head and body bounced down on the canopy in separate moments. 

“...Toga?” 

She didn’t realize she’d spoken until she heard her own voice, shaking in his shadow. He stepped between her and the body, blocking Gosaku’s corpse from view when she finally re-opened her eyes. Red clung to the tips of her eyelashes.

“I’m here,” he said, pulling her in close. “You’re safe.”

But this was no time for a reunion. The world around them began to shake and rumble as a scream erupted from underneath them, Tsuchigumo’s massive body thrashing against the ivory claw that trapped him. His human torso whipped and crashed about outside his mouth, his arms frantically reaching out and grabbing the threads of his webs to pull them down, cracking the stalactites and rock they’d been drawn across. The mountain quaked as it began to crumble, large chunks of stone crashing across the bone floor and splashing into the blue pool.

Izayoi watched in wide-eyed horror as the mouth of the cavern collapsed, caving in with Tsuchigumo’s violent outbursts.

“Izayoi,” Toga swept his arm in front of her, turning to put her behind him and kneeling down slightly. The tails of his pelt flared out across the webs beneath them. “On my back.”

Her left arm was completely useless at her side, dislocated as it was, but she was able to move around him and hook her right around his neck and climb up on him, pinning his sides with her numb knees. One of his arms slipped under her to support her rear, keeping her secure against the pelt. 

“He’s going to cave us in with him, isn’t he?”

“He’s going to try,” he murmured, standing up straight. Izayoi forced herself not to look back. “Hold on.”

He leapt in the air as Tsuchigumo pulled down the canopy they’d been standing on, landing on another as the rock wall above their head shook. Gosaku’s corpse fell without ceremony, lost somewhere among the skeletons as this process repeated itself. Soon they were caught in a pattern of leaping from canopy to canopy to avoid falling down into the spider’s reach. Tsuchigumo was screaming expletives, frothing at the mouth, and Izayoi knew it was only a matter of time before the spider demon resorted to more venous means of attack.

“I’m sorry,” she found herself saying, tightening her arm across his chest, gripping the fabric of his kimono to keep her from slipping. 

“Don’t apologize,” Toga said, somewhat thoughtlessly. He was distracted, looking for a means out of the cave. “...Shit.”

Her stomach dropped to hear him curse. They leapt off the last canopy as it came tumbling down, this time ripping massive chunks of rock off the ceiling with it. Toga dodged them easily enough, twisting mid-air to keep her out of harm’s way and landing with only a slight skid in the bones below. Distantly, Izayoi recognized her shoulder was searing at being jostled so badly, but she was too far gone to acknowledge it.

The bigger issue was the fact that Tsuchigumo had reared up on his hind legs, four spindling spider arms splayed as he spat a blast of concentrated venom directly at them.

Toga moved and Izayoi’s entire body screamed in protest, but she managed to keep hold of him as he darted out of harm’s way. She must’ve whimpered because he was looking at her over his shoulder, clearly checking to see if she was okay, and then he seemed to decide something right at that very moment.

“Move your head,” he said, looking away from her, “and close your eyes.”

She saw him reach up and back to the sword between his shoulder blades, pinned beneath her chest and his pelt, and understood.

The blade sang as it slid from its sheath and she buried her face away in his furs, feeling the world go cold around her. It was as if a blizzard’s wind had rushed into the caves. His arm tensed underneath her and she felt his other shoulder extend over and out, the blade fully released from its sheath. 

Memories of Kaoru screeching and retreating filled her mind in a flurry of red flower petals. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead further into his pelt, swallowing down the dread that was building in her throat. It was the same terrible feeling all over again. Evil, malice, and hate threaded into existence in a way they never should. 

But nothing happened.

And then something was _wrong_ , because Toga’s entire body swayed underneath her. She snapped her head up, opening her eyes as a feeling of rage swept across her from one side to the other, emanating in angry pulses from his side. Toga was staring sideways down at his sword arm, eyes wide and confused as his hand trembled violently beside them.

 _No,_ she realized. His hand wasn’t trembling. The blade was. 

The sword’s pommel burst with a fast cadence of amethyst light, dropping and increasing in intensity as if it could speak, shaking harder with every passing second. Toga grit his teeth against it, fangs bared, shaking his arm once as if that would quell the sword’s actions, but it seemed to only increase them tenfold. The rage she’d felt sweep over her was coming from the blade itself, put out in waves of angry heat.

Toga growled and then Tsuchigumo hissed again, apparently noticing the issue at hand. The cavern around them trembled as he reared up again, large pinnacles of rock shattering down from the ceiling and across the bone-littered ground, splashing into the deep waters between them as he readied another attack. 

Izayoi shoved her face back down into between his shoulders and prayed.

Toga cursed, raised the furious sword above his head, and yelled something that was lost to her in the wind. 

The world exploded.

There was no more Tsuchigumo. There was no more cavern. There were no more caves. There was likely no more mountain. There was just an earthquake, a tornado, and rocks crashing down all around them. Evil, malice, and hate exploding in a cutting rush of wind that burned against her bare skin, but it was gone as quickly as she felt it. 

Toga grunted and then they were moving. Izayoi didn’t dare open her eyes, clinging to him because her life depended on it.

Then there was light, blinding even behind her eyelids, and a gust of warm air all around her.

_Gods._

They’d made it out alive.

“Hold on!”

She tightened her grip - if that were possible at this point - and nodded against his back, burrowing her face into the darkness of his pelt. She’d been in the dark for days and couldn’t yet bear to turn her face to the light.

They were moving faster, his impossibly fast strides soon forgotten as she felt him step up off the ground into smooth flight. But it was more twisted and zagging than his run, jostling her as he avoided unseen obstacles. The jagged winds had stopped, but she could still hear the world tearing itself apart around them; rock cracking, the world shaking, and a mountain crumbling. 

When his flight eventually smoothed out, it wasn’t long before he slowed and began a short descent, eventually stepping back down onto solid ground. Even though they’d stopped, the world still felt like it was spinning. 

“Fuck.” 

He was cursing as he knelt, letting her finally slide off of his back. Izayoi didn’t think as she slipped free from him, stumbling forward with her eyes closed against the dusk, too bright even with its dying light. She felt as though she were outside her own body. Her knees buckled and she watched herself fall from above, folding over the ground and grabbing her injured shoulder, suddenly hyper-aware of the pain as it pinched white in the corners of her vision. Her whole body felt as if it had been set on fire.

Toga was still cursing behind her. Izayoi pressed her forehead to the ground, slowly opening her eyes and coming back into her body in the process. All she could see was a blurry image of her own body crumpled in on itself, stained black with blood. Her hair had fallen around her head in a veil, protecting her from the light. It was hard to breathe.

 _Just breathe,_ she told herself, even as she grasped for breath. _Just breathe._

There was an aching in her chest that felt like dying, but the hot pain that engulfed her shoulder was keeping her alive. 

_Toga._

Slowly, she tried to gather herself, allowing a strange sort of numbness to flood through her body as she swallowed her emotions. Agonizingly bending upright, blinking against the setting sun as the world struggled to come into focus, she twisted to try and find him. 

He was standing where she had left him, trying to pry his own hand off the hilt of his sword. The dragon’s blade was still shaking, practically cracking its own pommel with how bright its light pulsed. Toga’s claws were blackened around it, his nails turned a deep, rust-colored red against the silver metal. There was literal smoke coming from underneath his palm.

“Toga?”

Her voice cracked in broken, tired tones of concern as he finally cursed and ripped himself free, sending the blade clattering to the ground.

“Saya!”

The sword bounced and trembled across the dirt, but the sheath from Toga’s back moved of its own accord to silence it, shooting out from between his shoulders and arching through the air to contain the blade. There was a deafening scraping noise as it _clicked_ shut against the hilt, then new warmth radiated through the world. The amethyst light died.

Izayoi sucked in a breath, staring up into the red and ice blue eyes of her demon savior.

_Toga._

Then he was with her, gold again, kneeling before her as he took her face in his unburnt hand.

“Izayoi.”

She blinked, fumbling for thought as his thumb traced over her cheek, smearing blood between them. Every time she opened her mouth to speak her words failed her, and she could only watch him look over her as she gaped.

“You’re hurt.”

Her eyes followed his down to the sickening bulge of her shoulder beneath bloody, ripped fabric. 

“I’ll need to put that back in,” he murmured. “It won’t hurt as much while you’re in shock.”

_Shock?_

She didn’t know what he meant. But she nodded lamely, blinking against the water that ebbed back into her eyes. 

“T-Toga...”

“Shhh,” he shook his head, letting his hand fall from her cheek to rest across the bloody hand that pinned her injured shoulder. He gave it a comforting squeeze before prying the spider’s fang free from between her fingers - had she never dropped it? - and placing it on the ground beside them, leaning in to press his forehead against hers. “You did well, Izayoi.”

She could feel hot tears spill down her cheeks as she pressed up into him, their bangs a tangled bloody mess. He was marred too, indigo stripes hidden somewhere underneath Gosaku’s thick blood, and they leaned into each other with the ghost of that demon dripping between them. His blackened fingers reached up to wipe her tears away, hot as molten lava against her skin.

“Your— your hand.”

“Shhh,” he coaxed again. “Forgive me.”

She blinked up at him, confused, but realized his meaning as his other pale fingers slipped under the edges of her kimono to push it away from her shoulder. Her eyes followed his movements, watching as he bared her angry, red skin to the dim world around them. The way her shoulder lumped unnaturally made her stomach turn, but the feeling of sickness was too distant to prompt any unpleasantries.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, gently nuzzling her bangs. She nodded against him, letting her eyelids slide shut. Her heart ached. “Stay still.”

When he pulled away, she lamented his absence, lurching forward a little until he gently pressed her good shoulder to have her sit upright.

“Focus on the sound of the river,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice directing her attention. “Bite down on this.”

He pressed something against her lips and she opened for him, letting a small stick of wood between her teeth. She listened for the river he spoke of and found it, previously unnoticed in her pain, the rushing sound of water and small rapids now suddenly thundering at her side. The soft sands and smooth rocks beneath her legs belonged to a riverbed. She must’ve fallen alongside the water.

“Hold onto me,” he directed, and her good hand fell forward onto his knee, gripping the thick fabric and pressing down on the skin and banded muscle beneath. “This will be the worst part.”

His hands were on her injured arm, one cool and one fire-hot against the flame. Slowly, he began to move her, and it was like a million thick needles were being jammed into her joints. She cried out softly and he shushed her again, only soothing, sliding his hands into a final position before he gripped.

“Inhale,” he murmured, and she did, sobbing a bit around the edges. Her elbow was pinned against his fiery palm, the other ice around her wrist he held it out diagonally from her body. 

“Exhale.”

She did, and he twisted her arm in across her chest.

There was a _pop_ and a sickening sound of muscles scraping, only a brief moment of white agony in her mind before the pain climaxed and flagged out of her body. She was left gasping under his care, wide-eyed and lingering in the memory of her own agony. The stick tumbled from her mouth.

But it was gone. The pain, the fear, the fire, her agony— all of it, gone.

“It’s going to hurt again later. Here,” he said, breaking the open silence between them. His hand fell away from under her elbow to pry her fingers off his knee, guiding it to support her arm against her chest. “I need to bandage it.”

She nodded numbly and watched him pull fully away from her, standing. Now only aching, she took stock of her surroundings as he began to shrug out of his armor. They were far from the mountains now, resting in a rocky clearing that was cut through by a rushing river. The sky was losing light quickly. There was barely any blue left above her head, but she supposed that was for the best. She wasn’t sure if she would’ve been able to open her eyes to broad daylight after six days in the dark.

When Toga knelt back down he was behind her, the purple and maroon obi he wore over his outermost layers in hand. The rest of his armor lay in a discarded pile in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, reaching up to place a hand on her covered shoulder. Her injured one was still bare to the world, her sleeve hanging around her elbow. “To bandage this properly, I... well."

She bit her bottom lip, understanding. Now able to think without the fog of pain, she swallowed hard, eyes downcast to the ground. There was no helping it. Her thoughts flickered between scars and shame, suddenly overfull with the black feelings that Gosaku had dragged out of her during captivity. A few twining tendrils of vines crawled through her memories, reaching down under her skin. What modesty did she really have to save? Her clothing was in tatters, anyway. And even if it weren’t, he’d been kind enough to place himself behind her, where she could still have some modicum of control over her virtues.

Unable to bring herself to speak, she only nodded, and Toga’s hands slipped underneath her collar to help her shrug out of her dressings.

They didn’t speak to one another. Izayoi sagged somewhat over the feeling of being fully exposed, all her dented scars and rough skin bared to the twilight as she held her injured arm in place against her chest. When Toga did speak, it was with his hands, gentle as they pushed the mass of her hair aside and lowered the loop of his silk obi over her head and around her torso. He let it fall first to her waist, then pulled it taut against her body, sliding upwards so it slipped underneath her arms. She expected it to stop and loop under her forearm, but instead he kept pulling, and then the thick staff of fabric slid up to cover her breasts. 

A strange, desperate gratefulness pulled at her heartstrings and she could barely stifle a whimper as he secured it around her, tying it off against her back. 

“Is that comfortable?” he whispered, and she nodded, tipping her chin down into her chest to hide her face. 

He said nothing else as he tore the excess length of the obi away, using it to secure her arm flat underneath her breasts and sling her elbow on her good shoulder. When it was done he placed his hand on her arm like he had something to say, but then let his claws slip away with a sigh. A rustling of fabric followed.

“Here,” he said eventually, silk brushing against her good arm as he draped something over her. “I’ll turn away.”

Looking aside, only vaguely registering the soft sensation, Izayoi was met with the sight of white and blue covering her shoulder, and realized too slowly he’d given her the shirt off his back. A sob threatened to lurch out between her lips at the recognition, but her hand flew up to her mouth to catch it, relief and guilt and gratefulness suddenly overwhelming her.

It took a few long moments before she was able to wrangle her emotions back under control and pull herself to her feet, keeping her back to him as she tugged the tie of her tattered robes free and let the bloody fabric fall to the ground. Once one arm was sleeved inside Toga's kimono, she used her good hand to tug the silks closed around her, the hem falling short at her bruised knees. His height worked in her favor for this situation, the left sleeve hanging empty at her side.

“I,” she managed, forcing her voice a little louder on the second try. “I can’t, with one hand. Could you...?”

In the space of a breath he was in front of her again, kneeling down to take her discarded robes in hand. He picked up the kanzashi, too, wiping off the blood on his pants before he placed it in her hand. Her fingers curled around it as she looked at him, his red undershirt hanging somewhat loosely around his chest.

Gentle hands assumed the task of dressing her. She was covered well enough that she barely shifted under his quiet gaze, his claws ghosting over her hips as he tucked the fabric tighter around her and drew the other side over that, securing it in place with the thin obi he'd taken from her old robes.

“There.”

Without another word, he gingerly placed an arm around her waist and moved her towards the river, helping her fold back down to the ground when they were at the water’s edge. The tails of his pelt spread out underneath her for her to sit on, resting in the tiny waves that lapped against the rocky shore. He guided her to stretch her legs out in the riverbank, the cold current washing away the dirt and threaded cobwebs that clung to her skin.

The sound of ripping fabric drew her eyes back to him, watching his claws tear her old robe into thick strips. He picked the cleanest among them to dip under the river's surface, soon bringing them up to her face with incredible care. Carefully, his own injury laying limp in his lap, he began to clean the blood off her face. 

For a moment she let her gaze wander back down, lingering on the water that lapped over her legs, washing over countless purple-and-black bruises that lined her shins and knees. She remembered trying to sleep and losing balance, always tipping on her side before shocking herself awake. Skulls and bones scattered around her, dusty stone beneath her legs, white silk on her wrists— free now, swollen and braceleted with red welts. 

Her whole body was marked with the evidence of her suffering. She tried not to look too long at any of it, but the memories were more difficult to escape. She should be used to this by now. 

Toga gently pressed the wet cloth against her neck, dragging it down until he smeared all of Gosaku’s blood away. She leaned into his touch, forcing away all the sharp memories the spider demons had left in her mind. But it must have shown on her face, because Toga's touch felt lighter as he cared for her.

“You’re all right,” he murmured, “You’re safe now.”

His kindness crumbled her in mere seconds.

Tears fell down her cheeks again as all of the tension and stress of the last six days began to tumble out of her, every shred of her self-control torn to pieces by his attentions. Toga held her when she fell into him, sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” he was saying, but she didn’t care. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head where it had fallen against his bare chest, resting in the open space between his collar. 

“I was scared.”

“You were brave.”

He pulled her into his lap, holding her with his unburnt arm and covering her bare legs with his furs. He tucked his chin over her head as he spoke. 

“I failed you.”

It wasn't true. She tried to control her breathing, forcing herself steady so she could speak to him.

“You saved me.” Pulling back to look up at him, she wiped away the splatter of blood across his cheek with her hand. “It’s— It's not your fault.”

“It is.” 

The sorrow in his eyes made her heart break.

“I’m just glad you’re here now,” she tried again, keeping his face in the palm of her hand. He tilted into her touch, shifting slightly until the corner of his mouth was nearly on her skin. “Just... stay with me.”

When he looked down to her, time lay still.

“I couldn’t leave you if I wanted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Ending scene illustrated by @heavenin--hell!](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/629289980418818048/based-in-this-amazing-story-all-credits-to-the) Please go check out her work, she's amazing!!


	12. Chapter 12

_"I couldn't leave you if I wanted to."_

Izayoi looked into his eyes and wondered what she had done to earn his devotion.

A desperate, confused part of her wanted to ask. But no matter how many ways she phrased it in her head, how she designed and rearranged a hundred different words into a hundred different sentences - _Why do you care? What is this? What are we? What do you want from me?_ \- it always came back to the same question:

_Why did you save me?_

Silence stretched between them as he leaned his cheek into her palm, the pads of her fingers brushing against the slanted lines of his pointed ears. There was nothing pregnant or expectant about it; he didn’t seem to expect her to say anything in response, and, frankly, she couldn’t think of anything to say. The only thing she could do was trace her thumb across the tail of his eyebrow in an absent, comforting stroke that ended at his temple while her thoughts rolled slowly forward.

_Don’t feel guilty about this, Toga._

Whatever they were, she didn't want it poisoned by the ghosts of vines and spiderwebs. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was alive in this moment, sitting with him, and there was no one else in the world she would rather be with.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked. His breath washed down her wrist in a warm gust, skating beneath the hem of her borrowed sleeve.

Izayoi shook her head, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Slowly letting her hand fall from his face, she turned and reached forward to pull his sword arm - still blackened, hanging limp at his side - into her lap, quietly inspecting the damage. 

“You’re hurt,” she managed. It was a poor excuse not to return home, but he didn’t argue it.

“It's nothing to worry about.”

He tried to pull his hand away, but she held onto it, tugging it gently back into her possession. She heard him huff. 

“Izayoi…”

“I don’t understand,” she said, suddenly hyper-focused on his injury. “The sword did this to you?”

She lay his hand in her lap so she could push up his sleeve, wanting to see how far the damage spread. His skin was blackened like burnt leather, the veins of his arm slightly raised and pulsing hot underneath her touch. It spread from his fingertips to his forearm, ending in a jagged seam of veins just below his elbow. 

“Yes."

He flexed his fingers once just to show he could, palm upwards as his claws reflected dully against the twilight. They’d been stained underneath with his own blood, changed from their usual smooth sheen to a rust-colored red. She could feel his eyes following her movements as she slid her hand back down his forearm, fingers ghosting over the darker, bluer streak of skin that twisted around from elbow to wrist. His markings, she knew. They were hardly identifiable against the burns.

“Is this normal?”

Her fingertips hovered around the edges of many small, deep puncture wounds in his palm, pockmarked over calluses and creases. It reminded her of her own scars. Vines winding and crawling beneath skin...

“Not for me.” Gently sliding his hand out from hers, he splayed his fingers out wide in the air so she could see better, turning his hand over against the dying light. “It’s a sort of poison. A miasma. It will pass,” he added quickly, realizing she might think it was a dire situation, “I’ve suffered worse.”

Izayoi nodded, though she wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t playing down his injury. She leaned back against his other arm and into the crook of his shoulder, still braced by him as she sat sideways in his lap. Her own shoulder was beginning to throb, but it was easy to ignore as they talked. For now.

“So why, then?” she curled up a little as a cool breeze passed them by, her hand falling over the abandoned kanzashi that also took residency in her lap. Toga pulled his furs a bit tighter around her, making sure her bare legs were covered. Despite his injuries, his hand functioned well enough, though it was clear he was only using it because his other was occupied. “Is there really a dragon in that thing? Did it do this to you?”

Toga hummed shortly, thoughtful as he cast his gaze up the riverbank to where his armor and the discarded weaponry in question lay.

“...I suppose you’ve a right to know,” he decided, and then called out, “Saya!”

Izayoi blinked as the sword stood upright of its own accord, moving just as the sheath had when they’d first arrived. It jumped up into the air and soared into Toga’s outstretched hand, the middle of the sheath hitting his blackened palm with an audible, cracking _smack_. She cringed on his behalf, hearing him inhale sharply through his nose.

“You little bastard.”

Ridiculously, the sword responded back.

“That was incredibly foolish of you!” 

Toga growled, the reverberations in his chest vibrating against her good arm. Not completely understanding - and, admittedly, a little caught up in the fact he was literally growling like a dog - Izayoi could only watch as he proceeded to yell at a small bronze seal on the sheath’s edge.

“Is that any way to talk to me, you impudent little—”

“It is when you’re acting so rash!”

Before she could muster up any presence of mind to speak, a small, transparent face came protruding out of the seal, stretching forward until it became a fully-formed bust of an elderly man. He was unnaturally small - though, unnatural was an extremely forgiving term - and took the shape of a spirit, not so different from how she imagined a ghost would look. He was a mass of silvery hair and overly large eyes, his mustache and beard taking up half of his tiny face to make up for his greatly receding hairline.

When he did pop fully free from the seal, all that he was made of tapered down to a formless point, his body apparently lacking legs and feet as he floated freely in the air in front of Toga’s face. Whatever he was, he was certainly no dragon.

“I should kill you,” Toga threatened.

“Bah! And who would mind your weapon?” The creature asked, dismissively waving his white sleeve. “There were other ways—”

“How?! To transform? Smash her against the rocks?”

Izayoi could only watch them argue, slightly bewildered. This was a new side of Toga she’d never seen before. He’d always been very calm, understanding and tolerant, even patient and sometimes overly kind with her, but now he was… brash. As men tended to be with other men.

“Uhm,” she interrupted, very gently. Both men turned their gazes down towards her, as if startled to find they had an audience. “Is this…?”

Remembering himself, all of Toga’s brashness melted away with a sigh. He set the sword on the ground at his side as the ghostly creature turned his attention towards her, floating aside and down to be level with her face. His big, beady eyes blinked at her with curiosity.

“Ah, so you’re the cause of all this trouble.”

And though his transparent form may have suggested that he was not solid enough to be touched, that was proven false as Toga pinched his head between his reddened claws and squeezed. His brashness was back in an instant.

“What did you just say to her?” It looked like he might burst a blood vessel in his temple.

“Ack! My Lord!” 

“Apologize. Now.”

“Toga, please,” Izayoi said softly, trying to advocate for the little spirit, but he was already saying his apologies as he tried to wriggle free.

“Forgive my boldness, my lady, I meant no offense!”

Absently pulling at the loose side of her kimono inward to cover herself a bit better, she nodded quickly.

“Of course. There was none taken.”

Satisfied, Toga released him. The creature bobbed to the side in the air, rubbing his assaulted scalp.

“Izayoi, meet Saya,” Toga finally introduced. “So’unga’s sheath.”

 _So’unga._ She marked the name as Saya grumbled his pains away, eventually addressing her and curling up into what had to be meant as a bow.

“A pleasure to meet you, Izayoi-sama,” he greeted. “As a vassal of the great Inu no Taisho, I am humbly at your service.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well,” she returned politely. “Thank you.”

Saya turned his head up, floating away from her and sitting mid-air in the space above Toga’s shoulder. Pleasantries concluded, he appeared to have other matters to attend to.

“How bad is it, then?” 

Toga gave a great shrug, holding his hand up for his vassal to inspect. Saya scrutinized the wounds with his sleeves crossed, floating around his wrist with relative ease to appraise the damage.

“He’s not been so temperamental in years!” he judged, referring to the sword, “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse, my Lord.”

“What worse could he do?” Toga muttered, dismissive. Ignoring how that sent Saya grumbling about his lack of regard for his own safety, he reached down and picked the blade back up, holding it out so that Izayoi could get a better look.

“I wouldn’t touch it, Izayoi-sama,” Saya cautioned, quick to speak once it was presented to her. “So’unga is a demon blade. If it were to fall in your hands, the consequences would be catastrophic.”

Of course, she'd never intended to touch it. Knowing its evil aura was warning enough, but Saya's words did give her further pause. As if to stifle her own curiosities, she simply tightened her grip on the edge of her kimono, securing the unsleeved fabric over her injured shoulder and keeping her hand busy.

“He’s right,” Toga noted, tilting the sword a bit in his hand. The pommel caught the glow of the first rays of moonlight as the world around them finally settled into relative darkness, calm and cool. “And so were you. So’unga contains the soul of a dragon from Hell.”

 _A dragon from Hell?_ It seemed oddly specific and not in the least bit hyperbolic. Still, she didn't want to take him down tangents when he was finally opening up about something.

“So the rumors are true?” 

“Yes,” he nodded, expression somewhat distant. “It has a mind and a voice of its own, and the ability to possess a human wielder— or a yokai one, if they’re weak enough.” The way he spoke implied that he was not counted among the weak, obviously. “Once under its control, they’ll begin to slaughter every living thing in sight.”

“It’s power is limitless!” Saya added, “There’s no stopping the bloodshed once it begins. It wants nothing more than to kill, Izayoi-sama. It would drag this world into Hell if it could.”

“I… I see,” she said softly, regarding the sword with a new nervousness. Perhaps it was best she didn't ask too many questions, after all. This was a lot to take in. “Is that why it did that to you when you tried to use it?”

“No.” Toga shook his head, thoughtful. “I don’t use it often, so usually it’s just happy to kill things, but...” he turned his gaze away from her, back to the sword. “It knows my thoughts. When it realized I intended to use its power to protect a human instead of kill one, it tried to stop me.”

Saya gave a thoughtful hum. Izayoi considered his words as he put the sword back down on the ground, returning his hand to her lap and resting it over the furs that covered her legs. Thoughtlessly, she reached down to take it in her own, slipping her fingers underneath his so his claws were resting in her palm.

“This happened because you were trying to protect me?”

He shook his head, leveling her with a heavy look.

“This happened because I put you in harm’s way in the first place.” 

“It’s not your fault.”

It was easy to see he didn’t agree with her, leaving them at an impasse, unable to let the other shoulder the blame they felt they’d earned. The silence started again and stretched between them, neither one of them able to look away from each other. 

Eventually, Saya cleared his throat.

“I think I shall, erm, take my leave,” he announced, curling up into his bow again. “I wish you a speedy recovery, Izayoi-sama.”

She nodded, finally able to tear her gaze away from Toga’s as he closed his eyes. She gave Saya a soft smile.

“Thank you.”

He was gone in no time at all, dipping down from Toga’s shoulder and fading back into the seal on So’unga’s sheath. Alone again, she tried to relax, gently thumbing soothing circles over the back of Toga’s hand as he looked down at her again.

“How long will it take to heal?”

“Until morning, perhaps,” he shrugged, unconcerned. “Your wounds are another story, however. Allow me to take you home.”

She shook her head immediately, squeezing his hand gently. Still, he persisted.

“Your shoulder needs to be seen to properly, Izayoi, and I’m sure your family is worried—”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

The words sounded more vulnerable than she intended, but there was no taking them back once they left her mouth. Toga’s claws gently closed around her fingers. 

“Alone?”

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek. She didn’t know how to explain to him that no one at home would understand what she’d been through, no matter how well-intentioned they might be. Being surrounded by people didn’t mean she wouldn’t be lonely. In fact, she expected that returning to the safety of the castle would only exacerbate her fears— that once he was gone, she’d be left alone with her thoughts with nowhere to turn for comfort.

Yes, she was strong. She would survive this. But right now she was fragile, and all that was keeping her from shattering was him.

“They can wait another day, anyway,” she insisted, trying to dismiss her own feelings. “I’m not ready to go back yet.”

Toga sighed, but said nothing more about it. Instead he slipped his hand away from hers so he could slide it under her knees, adjusting her in his arms and standing to carry her away from the river’s edge. It was only a few short paces to the edge of the rocky river valley, where boulders and larger rocks lined a steep slope that led out of the basin. Finding an acceptable place to rest, he shifted all her weight into his good arm so he could pull the pelt off his back with the other hand. Dropping it on ground in front of a large boulder, he turned and folded down in a few easy movements, placing her between his legs with the pelt to cushion her off the rocky ground. He bracketed her with his knees, one bent up for his injured hand to rest on and the other relaxed out in front of him.

“You must be exhausted,” he murmured, reaching forward to pull the tails of his pelt over her legs. It covered them in full, protecting her from the growing chill of the night. “Try to sleep.”

She shook her head and then there was a hand on her stomach, pulling her back so her shoulders rested flat against his chest. She could feel him huff underneath her. 

“Izayoi.”

“No,” she said again softly, reaching back to pull the mass of her hair out from between them, dragging it out over her injured shoulder. It provided some protection from the chill night air, which was already finding its way into every loose entrance into her clothing. “Not yet.”

There was nothing good waiting for her in her dreams, anyway.

“Stubborn,” he muttered softly, though the admonishment was far from unkind.

Knowing she'd won the small battle, she relaxed back against him and he shifted to accommodate her, letting her rest her head against the side of his chin as she tried to get comfortable. Even through his undershirt, the warmth of his chest against her injured shoulder provided some relief, though the aching grew steadily stronger as the night went on. The rest of her body had begun complaining as well, joints throbbing and muscles aching as she settled in. It would likely only get worse. 

“...I came for you as quickly as I could, you know,” Toga said eventually, breaking through her silence. It was a welcome distraction from the pain. 

“I know,” she said softly, trusting him. 

“Nearly killed Myoga once he told me. Took him three days to find me.”

“Three days?” she tipped her face up to him, surprised. “Why?”

“I’d tracked Kaoru to the continent, across the sea,” he explained, “Once he managed to find me, I came back for you. Wasn’t without a few obstacles.”

“Tsuchi— uhm,” she meant to say his name, but settled for something that wouldn’t bring the image of him to mind, “The spiders, they said something about a dragon of the valley?”

Toga nodded.

“Ryukotsusei. An old friend of mine.” His tone implied that ‘friend’ was an extremely generous term. “It’s settled, for now.”

He was being evasive again, but he was also right— she was exhausted. Far too tired to chase him in circles until she could trap him into answering her questions fully. Leaning further into him, her eyelids seemed to grow heavier and heavier, her head bobbing slightly against him as she tried to stay awake. At one point she was quite sure he had hushed her, trying to coax her to sleep.

So she slipped, for just a moment, into the comfortable dark that had eluded her for days, where there were no spiderwebs or vines or pain. Just the black, bottomless and comforting, wrapped around her like a warm blanket on a winter’s night. Dark as a cave, smooth as silk, warm like a monster’s breath down her neck, hands in her hair, _pulling, yanking, drowning— she couldn’t move, there were webs threaded through her fingers, corpses on the ground, still shrieking, still dying as she lay in a spider’s canopy above them, staring up at the face of the man who wanted to pick her apart and play with the broken pieces of her heart, devour her whole—_

Izayoi jolted awake screaming, choking on the feeling of Gosaku’s mouth on her throat.

“You’re all right,” someone said, but she was panicking. The words didn’t reach her. She tried to twist out of the arm caged against her stomach, but it held her fast against a hard plane of warmth. There were claws around her wrist, trapping her right hand against her lap. “Izayoi, calm down.”

“Let me go,” she whimpered, trying to reach out to grab at the steel grip pinning her, but her shoulder immediately screamed out in protest. Her arm was strapped to her chest. A sob wrenched through her throat. “Please.”

“Izayoi, it’s me,” the voice said, a rush of warm breath across her ear. “Look at me. You’re safe.”

It took a few more moments of struggling for her to process what he was saying, something more conscious clawing to the forefront of her mind. A part of her was still screaming for her to run or fight, to get away, but there was something in his voice that made her turn her head to look at him. 

When she did, there were golden eyes staring down at her, brimming with concern. With care.

“I have you,” Toga said, and relief flooded through her chest.

_Oh._

She went lax in his arms, all her struggling abandoned as she remembered where she was. Not in a dark cave in the bowels of a mountain, but with the one who’d saved her. _Safe._

“I’m sorry,” she said, but he was already hushing her again.

“It’s all right. Here.” The claws clamped around her wrist loosened and slid up over the back of her hand, beginning to gently pry her fingers free from something. “Let’s put that away.”

Izayoi looked down to realize she’d taken the kanzashi in her fist, likely for no peaceful purpose. Her knuckles were white around its length and she dropped it immediately, horrified of what she might’ve done with it.

“I’m so sorry—”

“No. You were just trying to protect yourself.” He plucked the hair stick out of the furs and slipped it into her sling with ease, where it would be harder to procure but still readily accessible. “Don’t apologize.”

She sighed and slumped back against him, a rotten feeling festering in her chest. Focusing on getting her breathing under control and her emotions back in order, she closed her eyes and tried to force the ghosts of her nightmares out of her mind. It was more difficult than she expected.

“Are you all right?” he asked eventually, once her breathing had evened out. “You can tell me about it, if it makes it easier.”

She shook her head, a strange shame prickling at her edges. 

“Talk to me instead,” she countered softly, eyes still closed.

“About what?”

She was close to saying that she didn’t care, that she just wanted to listen to the sound of his voice, but a nagging question managed to make itself heard in the back of her head.

“Them, I guess,” she suggested, “Why was he sealed down there? What happened?”

Unable to bring herself to say their names, she was grateful that Toga understood her meaning. Quietly, he took her hand in his own uninjured one and she let him, happy for the small comfort.

“Ah. Well.” He leaned back, rubbing at his brow with his other hand as the tension from her sudden nightmare finally eased out of the both of them. “It was three or four centuries ago, I think. He’d attacked my son, so…”

She stumbled twice over his words; first, over the centuries, and then again over the son. Both stung her in her chest, but it was the latter of the two that shocked her the most.

“Your— your son?”

“Yes?” Toga looked down at her, broken out of the usual calm he always fell into when he began to tell a story. He appeared to be surprised at her surprise, confused by it as he let his hand fall away from his face, but then realization struck. “Oh. I suppose that wouldn’t be common knowledge among humans, would it?”

She shook her head, too taken off guard to come up with anything to say. So Toga continued on, apparently unbothered.

“My apologies, then. His name is Sesshomaru. He’s grown now, but at the time he was just a child. Tsuchigumo had challenged me while we were traveling together and I thought it would be a good learning opportunity to let the whelp watch a fight. And it was, until that old bastard got desperate.” He seemed thoughtful, like he was picking apart a memory he hadn’t revisited in some time. “But Sesshomaru was vicious, even back then.”

Izayoi could only imagine a much smaller, child-like version of Toga with all his teeth bared against a monstrous spider yokai.

“Tsuchigumo went after him when he realized he wasn’t going to win. Probably saved his own life doing it, but he didn’t count on Sesshomaru ripping that fang right out of his face.” Toga smirked at the memory, hundreds of years away from her. “Kid got a bit scraped up, though, so I abandoned the fight and took him back home to his mother. Tracked Tsuchigumo back to his cave later and,” he made a vague gesture with his free hand, dismissive, “that was that. Expected him to starve to death, honestly. He didn’t deserve a quick death after trying to harm a child. I didn't find out he had a son of his own until years after that.”

Any other time she might’ve focused more closely on his storytelling and what other information she could convince him to elaborate on, but right now all she could feel was the weight of his hand in hers. The echo of his admission reverberated in her chest.

_Mother and son._

Her heart felt heavy and she didn’t know why.

“Toga, are you…?” She looked up to him and he gazed back, waiting for her to finish her question. There was no indication that he knew where her question was leading, which seemed ridiculous in and of itself. “Are you married?” 

He nodded.

For some reason it felt like her world was crumbling. Without saying a word, he'd managed to change everything about the moment they were in. That he seemed so nonchalant about it, so uncaring, shook her harder than she could've ever anticipated. He was married— he had a _child_ , and here she’d been keeping him from them for the sake of her own curiosity. Making him chase her through the country, saving her from beasts and warning her against them every chance he got.

_Gods._

Carefully, as though she might shatter if she moved too quickly, Izayoi slipped her hand out of his and pulled it up to her chest, withdrawing as far as she could from him without outright standing and walking away. 

“I’ve been keeping you from your family,” she said softly, ignoring the way her heart began to ache with the rest of her body.

 _You’re an idiot,_ a cruel part of her mind reminded.

“Izayoi?”

He had the audacity to sound alarmed. She swallowed hard and forced herself not to feel, refusing to look up at him.

“I think... you should take me home now.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter update this time, but I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who has been leaving comments and reading so far. The outpouring of love for this story means so much to me, and I hope I can live up to all your expectations! Please remember to go check out [@heavenin--hell](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com) while you're here, this story wouldn't exist without her and her artwork is just amazing.

They hadn’t said a word to each other since she had asked to be taken home. Dawn was fast approaching as they traveled through the skies, the world rushing by underneath Toga’s feet as Izayoi clung to his back, hiding her face in the pelt against his shoulder blades. It was a welcome relief to be able to shut him out, even as he pinned her against his back with his arms around her legs. 

She was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. The fact that he had a family just kept spinning through her head, prompting emotions she didn’t completely understand or want to process. Only a few hours ago she’d been wondering what they were, swayed by his devotions and his soft touches, their hands entwined, and now…

Now she questioned why he bothered with her at all. 

Why did he care? What did he want? Why did he hold her hand when he had a wife somewhere? Why did he put himself in danger for her when he had a son to think about? Why did he say the things he said to her? What was she to him? Was he toying with her? Was this all a game? A passing curiosity?

_Why did you save me, Toga?_

All her questions always seemed to lead back to the first one.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when her stomach jolted up, their descent interrupting her thoughts. His claws tensed softly around her legs and she held on a little bit tighter, her good arm bracketed against his chest and over his collarbone. Pressing her face deeper into his furs and squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the ground to rush up to meet them.

Then there was screaming.

“Demon!”

Her head snapped up in an instant, eyes finally opening to see just exactly where he was taking her. It was a dizzying sight of the castle grounds coming up to meet them, and she realized in abject horror that he was taking her _through the front gates._ Guards were rushing around beneath them, having spotted the daiyokai dropping out of the sky above their heads, and by the time Toga finally stepped down in the courtyard there were twenty men with long spears at the ready to meet him. Their violent welcoming party rushed to encircle them, meaning to surround the perceived threat when they finally noticed her. 

“Hime-sama!”

It was chaos. Everyone going about their early morning routines had stopped to gawk or scream, and many servants were already rushing about— likely on her behalf, to tell the news or fetch her father.

Already upset enough as it was, it was difficult for her to bite her tongue. Was he naturally this stupid, or had So’unga’s poison finally reached his brain? This was a _problem_ ; being carried in on a demon’s back was bad enough, but after a week of being missing? She could punch him.

Toga surveyed the warriors around him with apparent boredom, saying nothing and making no move to respond. In turn, the circle closed in, bringing the points of their yari closer. Before Izayoi could wriggle out of his grip — which had only seemed to tighten as the guards moved closer — a voice broke out through the tension.

“Unhand her.”

The demand was spoken from outside their welcoming party, but the ranks were quick to break to allow another man in. 

Setsuna no Takemaru stepped forward with his sword held out, the blade pointed directly at Toga’s throat as his men closed ranks again behind him. He wasn’t even wearing his armor this early in the morning, dressed in only plain fabrics with his dark hair loose around his face, but he approached fearlessly and stared down a daiyokai on her behalf without the slightest hint of hesitation. His eyes never once left his target.

“Are you all right, Izayoi-sama?”

His voice spurred her own back to life. 

“Yes, yes, I’m—” she pressed down on Toga’s chest with her forearm, shifting in his hold to suggest it was time to put her down. He didn’t move. “I’m fine, Takemaru-sama, there’s no need—”

She’d had very few dealings with her father’s most trusted samurai, but she understood now why so many people seemed to hold him in high regard. He was fearless. Intense.

“Put her down, demon.”

“Who are you to give me orders?”

There was an edge in Toga’s voice that made Izayoi want to kick him.

“ _Toga_ ,” she demanded, just for his ears, and he finally relented. Kneeling down slightly so she could reach the ground, he kept his chin tipped up to the sword at his jugular and let her go, easing her down onto her own two feet.

In any other situation she might’ve been more concerned about the fact she was half-naked in front of twenty of her father’s men, but she didn’t have time for shame or humiliation as Takemaru’s blade glinted in the sunlight. This could turn very bad very quickly, and likely not at Toga’s expense.

But, luckily, there was an interruption.

“Enough! Get out of my way!”

Everyone’s attention turned toward the woman currently shoving her way through the ranks of samurai, her voice sharper than any of their blades.

_Sadako._

Izayoi could see her grey hair before she could see her, the older woman yelling at the shoulders of taller men as she broke her way into their lines, flanked by two of the younger maidservants under her charge. They swept into action immediately once they were through, the two girls throwing a long kimono over her shoulders and wrapping it closed so that she was covered, respectfully protected from the eyes of men around her. 

“Oh, Izayoi-sama, are you all right? We were so worried!” 

“Come, let’s get you inside.”

They were offering platitudes and making noise to distract their audience from the tension set by Takemaru, but the care they handled her with was genuine. Sadako said nothing initially, just holding her firmly by her arms as she tugged the robe into place on her shoulders. 

“Are you all right, my lady?”

Izayoi managed to nod, grateful. There was no one else in the world she would rather be looking at in this moment.

“Yes.”

Then, inexplicably, Sadako turned and addressed Toga with a short bow.

“Hello again, Inu no Taisho.”

“Hello,” he returned politely, expression flat as confusion played flagrantly across Takemaru’s face. Still, his sword didn’t fall. “Have her shoulder seen to.”

“Of course. Thank you for bringing her home safely.”

Sadako bowed again, not too deeply for it to be obscene, and then took Izayoi’s arm, pulling her away from the situation. Izayoi couldn’t bring herself to say anything, caught up in the strange exchange she’d witnessed. A memory began to stir somewhere in the depths of her mind, dragged out of the dark as realization dawned.

_“Boil it.”_

As she lay dying, Toga held out a red flower to Sadako and told her how to save her life. 

_Oh._

This wasn’t the first time he’d brought her home through the front gates. Takemaru and his men simply hadn’t been with their family, then; he didn’t know Toga as any different from any other demon. That she’d nearly died, that the man on the other end of his blade has saved her— all of that was news to him. 

Not that the information was likely to change his mind, much.

“Come along, young lady,” Sadako muttered, bringing her up the steps into her home. “Let’s go before these men get foolish.”

 _But_ —

She looked back over her shoulder as they rushed her away from the courtyard, just in time to see Toga reach up and snap Takemaru’s blade between his claws. He demanded something, but the order was lost on her; by the time Takemaru started shouting, she was being turned around a corner and the two men disappeared from sight.

Everything after that was a blur.

Once Toga was gone, Sadako became the center of her world. She and another maidservant — Matsu, a young girl who was relatively new to the house — were quick to spirit her away to her rooms, summoning healers and even a priest to attend to her. Izayoi watched it all happen outside herself, letting people dress and clean her like a child.

At some point, she returned to her body, staring at a steaming bowl of soup that Sadako was pressing into her palm.

“You should eat, Izayoi-sama.”

She blinked, sucking in a deep breath as she remembered herself. The morning light was long gone, having tipped over to the other side of the afternoon when she hadn’t been paying attention. Sunlight spilled in through the open windows of her private rooms, over the low table she found herself sitting in front of, warm ceramic pressed up against the palm of her free hand. Sadako sat beside her and Mastu was behind her, gently running a comb through her hair as she picked out cobwebs and dirt, delicately unwinding all the tangled knots that had formed over the past week.

“Oh.”

It was a lame answer, but no one seemed to expect much more from her. 

“Go on,” Sadako encouraged gently. “You must be famished.”

She was. The hunger pains had been distant and dulled until now, but seeing edible food — that didn’t belong to someone she’d just watched die — made her stomach grumble. She brought the bowl to her lips without another word, trying to pace herself. But it was empty before she knew it, the dull ache of her hunger hardly satisfied.

“We’ll let that sit for a while,” Sadako said, before she could ask for more. “The last thing you need right now is to stuff yourself sick.”

Izayoi could only nod, setting the bowl down and wiping the back of her mouth with her hand, ignoring the slight prick of embarrassment she felt for being so overeager. No one was likely to judge her for it, especially in her current company, but years of studying etiquette was not easily ignored.

“Thank you.”

It was all she could think to say. Sadako nodded, collecting the bowl and rising to her feet.

“Tea. Tea should do the trick, don’t you think?”

Izayoi nodded softly, gently rubbing one of her sore knees. Sadako took her permission to leave and slipped out the doors, closing them shut behind her with a mindful _click_ as she left.

Matsu breathed a familiar sigh of relief at her exit.

“Oh, Izayoi-sama, she’s been worried sick,” she said softly, filling the silence with calm conversation. “I have, too, of course, but… she cares for you like you were her own.”

Izayoi tipped her chin down, watching her fingers fiddle with the edge of her obi. She was wearing her own robes, she realized; soft white linens and a thick red robe over top, drawn together with a matching obi. It was all rather loose to accommodate the arm bandaged across her chest, but it was her own— not the white and blue silk that had covered her before.

_Toga._

Numb as she was, his name still managed to strike a strange feeling in her heart. Though she’d rather strike him from her mind at the moment, the memory of a samurai blade snapping in half between his claws was enough to allow curiosity to win out over her hurt feelings.

“Matsu?” 

“My lady?”

“What happened to the demon?” she asked quietly, forcing her palm flat out across her thigh to stop her fidgeting. The other, hidden in the folds of a proper sling, fisted against her side. “The man who brought me home?”

“Ah, well,” she was thoughtful, dragging the comb through the full length of her hair as all the knots finally admitted defeat, “I’m not entirely sure since I’ve been here with you, but... the guards are saying he went to speak with Lord Mizuno. I don’t know if it’s true, but Takemaru-sama has certainly been in a foul mood since this morning. He has the men—”

_Father?_

The news felt like a slap to the face, striking her numbness aside.

“He’s with my father?” she twisted, ignoring how the muscles in her back spasmed and cutting off Matsu’s rambling. “Why?”

The maidservant blinked back at her in surprise, comb frozen out in mid-air.

“Oh, well…” she lowered her hand, softening a little. It wasn’t without some concern. “I rather thought you would know the reason, Izayoi-sama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Yari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yari) :: Japanese spear.
> 
> More art inspired by this story by @heavenin--hell, please excuse me while I go cry: [Takemaru v. Toga](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/630012910839758848/all-credits-to-the-amazing-loveyou-x3000-and-this)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to avoid using scene dividers in this story except when switching between the feudal era and Izayoi's time, but I had to for this chapter. Hopefully you won't have to see them again, but we'll see...  
> Thanks for reading!

He was the most presumptuous, infuriating man she’d ever had the displeasure of knowing.

Right now she should be resting. For the first time in nearly a week she was safely at home with a bed made for her to sleep in, clean and warm and inviting, but instead of taking advantage of that she was at her vanity, writing down every single thing that had happened to her in her journals. Every detail, every phrase, every nightmare, because maybe if she put it all down on paper, just _maybe_ , it would all start to make sense. Maybe she’d finally be able to understand the ridiculous way Toga was acting. 

To what purpose would speaking with her father serve? Why hadn’t he mentioned it first? Why hadn’t he asked her? Why was he always keeping all his plans to himself? Did he not see how speaking to him could make everything ten times worse? Did her opinion not matter? 

No, it didn’t, and she knew why; he kept all his thoughts to himself because he knew _better_ — he always thought he knew better, knew more, presumed his actions were right simply because he was the one making them. The world revolved around him and his ego. He’d taken her headfirst into Kaoru’s thorns because he’d thought no one would challenge the great and mighty Inu no Taisho. Because he thought that she needed to be shocked into seeing that the world of demonkind was too big for her tiny human self; because _he_ knew what was best for _her_. It was arrogance at its worst, and all of that was without mentioning bothered her most:

He kept secrets. Important, painful secrets. In the same moments he’d played with her heart and said sweet things in her ear, he’d had a family tucked away in a corner of his world that he’d never once thought to share with her. 

Izayoi never wanted to see him again.

Except that she did.

_Damn it._

Sighing and setting her brush down on the edge of an inkwell, Izayoi covered her eyes with her hand and leaned forward, trying to soothe the headache that was beginning to form. It was only one side effect of her stress, an amalgamation of every thought and bitter feeling she’d had since she found out he’d gone. Without so much as a goodbye, in fact— apparently, she wasn’t worth the bother, and now she was alone with the turmoil of her thoughts. 

If she wanted these feelings to settle, she knew she’d need answers. The questions to find them, however, eluded her. Not that she didn’t know that they were; she did, and they were all worth asking. The problem was that for the first time since she’d met him, she was afraid of what his answers might be. Would it destroy whatever friendship they had? Were they even friends in the first place? Once, she might’ve said they were, but now… she didn’t know.

Izayoi groaned.

Even if she could gather up her courage to find him and ask him, there’d be no rushing out into the forests anymore. There were guards everywhere, all on high alert since her disappearance and now doubled down on their duties with her return. It would likely take weeks for them to relax, if not months. She was watched, caged safely inside her home with only her thoughts for company.

Journaling didn’t seem to be offering any insights, either. It just made her heart ache; remembering all the little details of the spiders and their caves, lingering in the feeling of how Toga had swept her up and saved her, cared for her, held her in his arms and bandaged her wounds… The ghosts of his hands over her skin were haunting, the echo of his claws scraping over her hips ever present in her mind. He’d only been dressing her, of course, but the memory made her stomach tighten and her head drum. 

What did he want? Why was he always saving her? Was it out of guilt, or was she just a distraction from his other life? Did he even realize how she felt? How her heart beat faster when he was around, how she missed him? How she could still feel his fingers laced with hers, the weight of his arms around her?

Izayoi sucked in a breath and slid her hand down to her mouth, pressing her lips against her palm.

_Damn._

Did she even know how she felt?

Groaning softly and abandoning her task all together, Izayoi finally gathered herself up for bed, pacing shortly across the room and kicking the blanket aside before settling down. There were no answers worth finding tonight. She was tired and sore and angry, frustrated with the man that had somehow clawed his way into the center of her life. 

But before she could think on him much longer, her head hit the pillow and she was gone, darkness crashing down around her the moment she closed her eyes.

At least this time she didn’t wake up screaming. 

Instead she woke to the painfully normal world she’d left behind, and time rolled forward.

Healers tended to her as the days passed by and Matsu and Sadako were always close at hand, helping her through the worst of her shoulder’s healing. She met with her father and step-mother, both of whom seemed only happy to have her home, and tried not to call much attention to herself, though it felt as if everyone were staring at her as she walked through the mansion. They likely were. She was sure she was the subject of most gossip these days, even if Matsu was kind enough to assure her otherwise. How could she not be? Thrice kidnapped by demons and thrice returned, battered and bruised despite the fact that she should be dead. Anyone else would be.

As for Toga’s visit with her father, details were scarce. It was more difficult than usual to eavesdrop when people were hyperaware of your presence, so Izayoi had been forced to assign Matsu the task of discovering the nature of the meeting. Without Sadako knowing, of course. Usually the young woman was quite good at gathering castle gossip, as she herself was an avid participant in such things, but no one seemed to know much of what had transpired. Only that Takemaru had been incensed at having to permit a demon entrance into the house and that Toga had made it known, loudly, that he could sense when people were hanging around where they shouldn’t be. Apparently that alone had been frightening enough to scare off the usual nosy gossipers from listening in.

The only tidbit of information she’d been able to find came from a stable boy who’d been tending to the horses when Toga had stepped out into the courtyard to leave. By his account, he’d seen and heard the demon talking outloud to - for all the boy could tell - his shoulder. Izayoi assumed what he’d witnessed had been an exchange with Saya or perhaps the little flea, Myoga, but ultimately the conversation didn’t hold any meaning. Something about a volcano and a swordsmith. 

So Izayoi was left waiting, forced to try and resume her normal life until he decided to grace her with his presence again.

Twelve days after she’d come home, finally relieved of her sling and wanting to be anywhere but the confines of the castle grounds, she set off to visit the orchards. Autumn was fast approaching and she wanted to take advantage of the last of the fruits before they withered and died, not thinking anything of the fact that her father would prefer her to stay in their residence. She’d left openly through the castle gates and no one had stopped her. Her destination wasn’t far, anyway, and though the orchards bordered the forest, her visit would be brief. There was plenty of light left in the day. She would be fine.

She had just started to walk the trees when someone called her name.

“Lady Izayoi?”

Testing her shoulder’s mobility, she reached up to pull down a low-hanging apple, one of the last few that hadn’t fallen to the ground to rot. She turned to see a samurai looking for her through the trees, somewhat intense in manner. 

It was Takemaru.

“Is everything all right?” she wondered, catching his attention.

“Ah, Izayoi-sama, there you are.”

She smiled politely as he approached and bowed low, turning her apple over in her hand as she regarded him. He’d become a fairly common figure in her life recently, though he remained on the outskirts, occasionally finding ways to sneak into her peripherals when she least expected it. After having her heart skip a beat one too many times while walking through the halls, Sadako had informed her that her protection had been assigned to him, so his presence was nothing to worry over. Even if it was nearly constant, excepting the times she slipped away to the women’s quarters or her own rooms.

For his part, he spoke very little; there were only the normal pleasantries when she passed him in the household, stiff bows of respect and terse greetings. Maybe an apologetic glance or two when he happened to notice that he’d startled her. Overall, he was a difficult man to read. She didn’t know what to think of him, yet. 

“You should return home, my lady,” he insisted, not unkindly. “It’s not safe outside the castle walls. I’d be honored to escort you.”

“Oh?” she asked, thoughtful as she turned from him and continued to walk. It was easy to tell he was quick to follow her, his armor clacking as he straightened up and trailed behind. “I appreciate your concern, Takemaru-sama, but I won’t be here much longer.”

“I must insist—”

“Must you?” she mused.

“I…” He didn’t seem to know how to take that. She glanced over her shoulder and caught him staring, though he immediately averted his dark eyes. “...Yes, I fear I must.”

“I see.”

He was a handsome man, close to her in age and - as she’d been told repeatedly by Matsu over the past week - strikingly unmarried. Being who she was, Izayoi knew the possible implications of such a thing, especially in a man that her father praised so openly. His trust in him was no secret. That, and he’d fought brilliantly under their banner, squashing whatever military troubles had transpired in her absence (the same troubles that had left the castle conveniently lacking in guards, which had worked in Gosaku’s favor). Takemaru’s eligibility was not in question.

Still, those were thoughts for another time.

“You must understand, Takemaru-sama. I haven’t been outside the castle in nearly two week’s time,” she said, trying to appeal to his pity as she reached up for another apple at a new tree. “There’s no danger here and I sorely need the exercise. But,” she added, before he could argue that walking the gardens would likely suffice, “if you would feel more comfortable accompanying me, you’re welcome to stay, of course. I won’t be long.”

That seemed to do the trick. He would have to escort her back, anyway— why not humor her, if properly chaperoned? What harm could it do?

“...A little while longer, then,” he conceded, sounding a bit softer. 

She smiled and he politely averted his eyes.

“Thank you.”

He fell back an appropriate distance and Izayoi was free to return to her task, plucking choice fruits from the lower branches and placing them in a small, flat basket she’d brought along. There weren’t many left, as she’d expected, which made it incredibly easy to keep her word; perhaps twenty minutes had passed before she was ready to depart. It was just as she was turning around to let Takemaru know that she was ready to leave that she felt a sharp sting on her neck.

Thoughtlessly, she reached up and slapped the offender.

“Izayoi-sama?” 

She must’ve looked ridiculous standing there after hitting herself, expression shocked with a small twinge of pain, but something was squirming underneath her palm. Unable to think of anything to say, she simply peeled her hand away, moving to inspect what had attacked her.

Myoga the flea was flattened in her palm.

 _Shit._ The first thought came quickly, followed by a stream of repeated curses. _Shit, shit, shit._

Before she could so much as close her hand into a fist, Takemaru was beside her, looking down at the demon that had attacked his charge. He plucked Myoga away in an instant, pinching him between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Demon.”

Myoga squirmed between Takemaru’s fingers, popping back into shape only to have his little eyes bulging with the pressure.

“Mercy!” he squeaked, and Izayoi took the risk to act on his behalf. She reached out, clasping Takemaru’s hand between her own.

It was wildly inappropriate, even for her. But committed now, her fingers fell around his fist and squeezed gently over the armor he wore, trying to guide him to release the little flea.

“Please, Takemaru-sama, he’s of no harm. Release him.”

“You know this creature?” All the kindness that he’d previously held for her was gone, replaced by the intensity that seemed to be his natural mood.

“I am a vassal of the great Inu no—” Myoga yelped slightly, his legs kicking into the air as Takemaru’s grip tightened. “—the great Inu no Taisho! I come with a message!”

Izayoi’s heart stopped in her chest. Takemaru was still talking, his lips curling into a sneer at the mention of Toga, but it gave him enough pause that he didn’t squash the poor little man.

“A message for whom?”

“The young lady!”

“Please, Takemaru-sama,” she heard herself saying, feeling as though she were floating halfway out of her body. “He’s only a messenger. What could he possibly do at that size?”

“My lady—”

“Takemaru,” she said, abandoning honorifics in the hopes that she would be able to break through his stubbornness. “Please.”

It worked.

Myoga wrestled himself free and dropped into her palm as Takemaru stared at her, clearly startled, though it appeared that he was attempting to veil his expression. Any relief the little flea’s release stirred was short-lived, however; now Izayoi was faced with the very uncomfortable situation of not only defending a demon, but needing to speak to him, all while having been behaved in a very unladylike manner. It would not be any easy thing to explain away or ask forgiveness for. 

It wasn’t as if she had a choice, though.

“A moment, if you would,” she requested softly, releasing his hand and pulling the other closer to herself, protecting Myoga as her fingers curled into a small cage over him.

“My lady, that is a demon,” he said numbly, nose crinkling slightly. “I cannot.”

“I’m aware— and I understand your concern,” she added hastily, not wanting to offend further, “but it’s in the name of the demon who saved my life. I should hear his message, if only out of respect.”

Takemaru stared at her for a long moment, expression finally managing to sort itself into something more controlled, becoming indecipherable and distant. It was much like staring at a wooden sculpture, its features frozen and immobile, left up for individual interpretation. However, the wood eventually cracked; he nodded curtly and stepped back, allowing her privacy.

“Only a moment.” 

It took all she had not to to sigh in relief. When Takemaru fell back fully, still visible but clearly out of earshot, Izayoi brought Myoga up to her face, flattening her hand and turning her back on her chaperoning samurai.

“What are you thinking?!” she demanded quietly, keeping her volume to a hiss. “Myoga-sama, you can’t just appear out of nowhere like that.”

“A thousand apologies, my lady,” he said, falling on his rear in her palm with a huff. He rubbed his abused head. “But it’s just as I’ve said. I have a message for you, but if now is not a good time…”

“Did you think it was? You could’ve been killed.”

“I never expected to be spotted! So rarely do humans notice a tiny flea like me.”

 _You bit me!_ she wanted to say, but for as rude as it sounded in her head, it would likely be downright offensive if said out loud. 

“Well, you were noticed,” she grumbled instead, sighing. “Can it wait?”

“I suppose. I can come to you after you retire for the evening, if that’s acceptable?”

“Yes, do that,” she agreed, then added, “ _Always_ do that, Myoga-sama.”

He nodded his bulbous head, standing back up and bowing apologetically.

“Again, a thousand apologies.”

“Go on,” she murmured, not ready to forgive him quite yet. Men could be so daft. “I’ll see you later.”

The little flea hurried away, bouncing off her palm and disappearing into the orchards— likely putting as much distance between himself and Takemaru as possible. Izayoi adjusted the small basket trapped between her arm and her hip just to move, suddenly realizing she had very little time to figure out just how to excuse this interaction. Maybe she had her talents when it came to sneaking out of her home, but outright lying was a different task entirely. 

Gathering her thoughts, Izayoi turned back to Takemaru and smiled stiffly when she met his gaze, nodding once. She began to walk back in the direction of the castle, passing him by so that he fell into his pace half a step behind her.

“The daiyoukai was merely seeing that I had healed,” she explained, unprompted. It was a small mercy that she didn’t have to lie to his face. “Nothing more.”

He seemed to accept her explanation for a moment, but of course, nothing could be so easy.

“If I might be so bold,” Takemaru hedged, and Izayoi groaned internally. “Why would that demon call after your wellbeing?”

She wished she could tell him to mind his business, but that would only prompt further suspicions. 

“I wish I had an answer for you, Takemaru-sama,” she said instead, returning to formalities. At least that was the truth. “He is as much of an enigma to me as he is to you.”

“He is a danger to you, my lady.”

 _He’s also a massive headache,_ she added, but it was only for her own benefit. To Takemaru, she merely nodded.

“Yes. If he wanted to be.”

Trying not to let her mind wander too far, fully aware that she needed to pay attention to maneuvering through this unfortunate conversation, Izayoi focused on the path home and the sound of Takemaru walking behind her. The apples suddenly didn’t seem worth the trip.

“Forgive me, Izayoi-sama,” he began again, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. “But what is the nature of your relationship with that demon?”

 _The nature of my relationship?_

If only she knew. Unsure how to cleverly or convincingly answer the question, she let her silence speak for her, and it was surprisingly effective.

“I apologize,” Takemaru said immediately, realizing how presumptuous a question like that was, especially when asked of a young woman. “I didn’t mean to presume. It’s only that...”

“It’s all right,” she said, a slight pang of guilt in her chest at his panic. She chose her next words very carefully. “...What happened to me is over now, Takemaru-sama, and I am simply grateful to be alive. The manner in which I was saved is inconsequential. If I’m fortunate, I’ll never have to encounter another demon again in my life.”

A breath of silence passed between them, but he eventually found his voice again.

“Yes. Of course.”

Mercifully, they didn’t speak again until after they’d reached the courtyard, safely inside the castle grounds just before the beginning of sunset. Izayoi stopped on the stairs and turned to regard her samurai shadow, offering him a small smile.

“Thank you for the escort, Takemaru-sama.”

Takemaru stood a step below her and bowed politely, as was expected of him. Before he could speak, Izayoi continued, trying to be gentle with her words and quiet enough that they wouldn’t be overheard.

“If at all possible, I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to my father just yet,” she tried, though was quick to add, “I intend to speak to him myself, of course. I just… There’s no reason for him to worry unnecessarily, is there?”

Though his hesitation was clear, the young man finally nodded. Izayoi wasn’t sure if she could trust it.

“As you wish.”

And then it was back to her rooms to panic.

She practically slammed the flat basket of apples on the table in her room, kneeling down in defeat as she processed what had just happened. Not only had her new personal guard dog met Myoga and nearly tried to kill him, but Toga was making contact with her after twelve days of absence, and somehow, amidst all that, she had to find a way to tell her father about the false claim that the Inu no Taisho was doing wellness checks on her. At best, Lord Mizuno would worry; at worst, he’d trap her inside the castle walls forever and she’d never see the outside world again. 

_Just don’t tell him,_ a reckless part of her mind suggested, but she forced the thought away.

Not telling him was out of the question. If she didn’t and Takemaru reported the incident, purposefully or otherwise, the whole ordeal would only escalate. Right now she had control of the narrative. Losing that could be catastrophic.

Twelve days of nothing and now Toga had her world crashing down around her, and he hadn’t even done her the courtesy of showing his face.

She sat back on her heels and thought, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. There was still some time before she’d join her family for dinner. Talking about all the things that had happened to her was not a popular conversation topic — it was something that had been broached once or twice, often in private, and then never spoken of again — and she doubted that the topic of the Inu no Taisho would be any more favorable. Perhaps if she spoke to her father alone after their meal…

 _Don’t be a coward,_ she told herself, and then prepared for the rocky night ahead.

———————❖———————

Luckily, Lord Mizuno was more than happy to entertain his daughter’s request for company. 

They walked the gardens together after their meal, enjoying relative privacy as the other palace residents and servants gave them a respectfully wide berth while they walked their path. The breeze was cool and the sun was sinking low in the sky, casting the world in oranges and soft blues that reflected off the glassy surface of the ponds and streams. Izayoi found her heart aching as she took the sights in; moments like these with her father were few and far between since he was most often away at the capital, and she’d soon spoil their peace with talk of demonkind.

She knew she didn’t have any reason to fear him. For all his influence and power, her father had always been kind and understanding with her, even when she’d proved to be a difficult child. Sadako had told her time and time again that she should be grateful to have a man so far on in his years as a father; a younger man wouldn’t have entertained her mischief. But even when her nursemaid had scolded her, Lord Mizuno had often encouraged her spirit— he’d lived a long life full of struggles and loss, and wouldn’t see the world be cruel to his last living child.

When he had been young, he’d had a young wife and an infant son. A fever had taken them both before the boy had turned ten. Then there had been her own mother, who’d been lost during the birth of their second child; the stillborn infant had been buried alongside her. Now there was his current Lady Mizuno, but their marriage had proved fruitless through the years. So, in the end, there was only Izayoi. His one cherished child.

And now she was getting herself into loads of trouble without a thought in the world towards how that might affect her family.

What a rotten daughter she was turning out to be.

“So,” her father began, bringing her out of her thoughts. “You wished to discuss something with me?”

“Yes.” Eyes downcast, she tried to find a good way to broach the topic. There was none. “It’s a confession, more of less.”

“Ah,” he sounded interested, but she didn’t miss the slight tilt in his tone. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the demon you encountered today, would it?”

Her head snapped up and he chuckled at her shock, though not unkindly. His eyes were sparkling with polite amusement.

“You thought I wouldn’t find out?” he wondered, “My, my…”

“No, I only—” _Takemaru._ She cursed his name in her head, realizing she’d been right not to trust him entirely. “I thought I would be the one to speak to you about it, is all.”

“You’ll have to forgive him, my dear,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “Takemaru only did what he thought was right by you. And it was,” he added, making a point of it. “But I'm glad to know you meant to tell me yourself.”

Izayoi sighed, tucking a stray lock of her hair back over her ear. 

“Yes, father,” she murmured, trying to reorganize her prepared speech now that he’d effectively destroyed her plans. But he gave her very little time to do so, continuing to speak as she tried to wrangle back some form of control.

“So that Inu no Taisho is seeing after your health, is he?”

“I didn't ask him to,” she insisted, feeling a little flustered. “I don’t... understand him.”

That didn’t feel like the wisest thing to say, but her father hummed something that sounded like an agreement. He folded his arms in his sleeves as they walked, neither seeming worried or upset. Only thoughtful.

“I’m sure you know he spoke with me.” 

Izayoi felt her heart come up short. 

“Ah, yes,” she managed, surprised he’d mentioned the meeting at all. Trying not to sound too invested, Izayoi gathered up her courage to nudge the topic forward, “Though I admit, I can’t imagine why.” 

This was her chance. Her only chance.

“He was,” Lord Mizuno paused, obviously choosing his words with care, “concerned about your safety, I suppose. That you’d fallen into company with demons twice made him question our ability to protect ourselves and our people.”

_Twice?_

She realized too slowly that, to her father’s knowledge, her kidnapping from the orchards had not involved Toga at all; according to her own story, she’d been taken and escaped this mystery demon all on her own. Had Toga purposefully avoided mentioning it?

“By his account, there is conflict brewing in the demon world. If it were to spill over into ours, the situation could become dire, but,” he looked to her, eyes gentle, “do not worry yourself. We have enough problems of our own without dealing with his.”

She chewed on the inside of her lip, not sure what to make of the information. It wasn’t particularly surprising, but it also wasn’t what she had been expecting.

_What did you expect, though?_

She didn’t know.

“That’s all?” 

“Did you expect something more?” her father asked, and now she knew he was the one trying to pry for information.

“No,” she said, perhaps too quickly. “It’s only that he… well.” She paused, staring out over the gardens as she tried to piece together a thought that wouldn’t sound too suspicious. It had always been easy to talk to her father. Having to choose her words so carefully felt stifling. “I still don’t understand why he even bothered to save me in the first place.”

At least that much was true.

“I see.”

They fell into silence for a moment, turning around the path to walk alongside the ponds. Eventually, her father broke the silence, seeming to sense his daughter’s discomfort.

“Don’t worry too much about it. With any luck, you’ll never have to see him again.” 

Izayoi nodded, clasping her hands in front of her and worrying with her fingers behind the privacy of her many long sleeves. Never seeing him was an unpleasant thought, even being as angry as she was.

“I’m looking towards your future, daughter,” Lord Mizuno continued, his tone a little bit more serious now. “It may not be easy, but we’ll put this behind us. I promise.” 

The thought of Takemaru flickered in her mind, bright and somehow unwelcome.

“Of course, Father.”

———————❖———————

The rest of her day was rather uneventful. 

Izayoi was left to linger on her father’s words. His meanings weren't lost on her. When he spoke of her future, he was spoke of marriage, a societal trapping that she had masterfully avoided so far. She’d been quite picky with all the suitors she'd entertained over the years, but ultimately they had all been sent away, either unable to offer her a suitable standard of living or a guarantee of security. Marrying a man that wouldn't benefit her entire family was out of the question. It was the only power and duty she had as a lord's daughter. Her marriage was an important tool in ensuring her family's legacy, especially with no brothers to carry on the name. In that vein, Lord Mizuno had supported all her decisions without question, despite the fact that Lady Mizuno often warned them both that Izayoi “getting on” in years, at least in the context of a marriageable age. It had seemed ridiculous then, but now… 

Perhaps she had been too picky. The issue was no longer that she had poor suitors; it was that she herself was a poor choice— a woman thrice captured by demons and saved by another. Rumors were what they were, even if there was no truth in them. What man would take the chance on her? Her family had influence, but not nearly enough to make it worth shouldering that sort of judgement.

In all likelihood, her next suitor would be her husband. Currently all indicators pointed towards Setsuna no Takemaru as the only eligible, noble option she had. He was highly favored by his Lord and successful in battle. If he were interested, she couldn't see her father turning him away.

Trying not to think too hard about him and his dark eyes — that piercing gaze that seemed to follow her wherever she went, determined and intense — Izayoi readied herself for bed. She had no intention of sleeping, but she always went through the motions. Myoga’s imminent arrival aside, nightmares had become her new normal. Sleep eluded her. She’d rather lay awake all night than wake sweating and screaming, disturbing half the house in the process. What sleep she did get was taken in short bursts, either in the middle of the day or the earliest hours of the morning when she could no longer keep her eyes open.

She’d just bedded down and leaned over to blow out the last candle when she heard a little voice call out her name.

“Izayoi-sama!”

In the flickering candlelight, she spotted Myoga jumping up and down on the floor next to her bed, hopping up onto her pillow and bowing in greeting.

“I’ve returned. Is now a better time?”

“Yes. Hello.” Abandoning her task, she leaned back and propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at the little flea. The orange glow of the flame cast them both with sharp shadows. “So what message do you have for me, Myoga-sama?”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He folded his stubby legs and crossed his tiny arms, sitting straight-backed on the bedding. “My Master wished for me to check on your health, Izayoi-sama, and he says that he hopes you’ve healed well. He’s been away dealing with pressing business— but ah, not far from here!” he added quickly, as if remembering an important note, “If you had need of him, he could be here in less than a half hour’s time, I assure you!”

She frowned a little, both surprised that she’d guessed correctly but expecting more.

“...Is that all?”

“No. He wanted me to let you know he will be visiting tomorrow night.”

 _What?_ The news sent her reeling, but the thoughts were less than kind. After all of this, he thought he could just show back up in her life with a last-minute message? After leaving her here without an explanation and only sending someone to see her when he desired to return? She wasn’t here for his convenience.

“I see.” She kept her voice calm, internalizing all her frustrations. “If I might send you back with a response, Myoga-sama?”

He perked up, standing to listen. “Of course.”

“Tell him that I appreciate his concern and that I’ve healed well, but,” _—he’s a presumptuous, secret-keeping, arrogant, egotistical_ — “I wouldn't want to keep him from his family. There’s no need for him to come. I will be fine.”

This surprised the little flea, who seemed to take the hint that Toga had missed completely.

“Ah, my lady…”

“My reputation is tarnished enough as it is without a demon knocking at my private chambers.”

“...I think you may misunderstand,” he tried meekly. Izayoi sighed, reaching over him to extinguish the candlelight.

“That is all. Thank you, Myoga-sama.”

With a breath, her room plunged into darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

Toga wasted no time in responding to her message.

Hardly an hour had passed since Myoga’s departure, during which sleep had managed to creep over Izayoi, but only just barely. Nightmares were beginning to flicker to life in the corners of her mind, distant and malformed. All her fears were foggy, indistinct— until the doors to her room flew open and ripped her back into the waking world.

“Izayoi.”

In the seconds between sleeping and waking, his voice reached down through her skull and grabbed her by the back of the brain, infiltrating the deepest parts of her mind. There was no escaping it. It yanked and she was dragged up into consciousness, helpless, choking on a scream that never managed to make it out of her throat. Izayoi’s eyes flew wide open as she jolted awake, desperately clutching at her chest and tangled in sweat-damp sheets, consumed by the dreadful feeling of panic. 

Standing in her doorway, haloed in the silver light of a full moon, was Toga. He stared down at her, impassive and stoic, his eyes blazing gold in the dark as his shadow stretched across her floor at a terrifying length. Every arch and spike of his armor lent to the ominous feeling that was quickly infecting the night, radiating off him in waves. It was hard to see his face against the moonlight, but she didn’t need to see him to know that he was angry.

If she were smarter, she might’ve been afraid of that anger. But she was only tired; tired of being watched, tired of being judged, tired of being ignored, and tired of being tired. She didn’t want him here and she’d told him as much. Who did he think he was, bursting into her room like this? Who did he think _she_ was?

“What are you doing?!”

Despite her best attempts at keeping her voice steady, it faltered by the time it reached her ears, coming out only as a trembling hiss. 

Of course, he couldn’t be bothered to answer her question.

“Tarnished your reputation, have I?” he said instead, the words laced with venom.

Anger flared in her chest, hot and sharp. Clasping her hand over the loose panels of her kimono to make sure it was closed, she tried to keep some semblance of control over her emotions. It didn’t work as well as she’d hoped.

“Get. Out.”

The shoji clicked shut behind him in clear rebellion, plunging them back into darkness. Irritated and out of sorts, a dark mood festering while another part of her mind still clung to the tattered edges of a nightmare, she managed to relight the candle at her bedside, knowing that he could see in the dark and refusing to be at a disadvantage.

When the flame flickered to life, the edges of his boots were at her bedding. 

Her heart might’ve dropped out of her chest just then. He had crossed the space between them without so much as a rustle of fabric or a footfall, and now he was looming over her in her bed, acting as though he had any right to invade her personal space. Was he trying to scare her? If he was, he underestimated her stubbornness. Scarier men crawled through her dreams.

“Toga,” she said coldly, trying to wrangle her tone into something commanding. She stared at his boots. “Leave.”

“No.” His answer was immediate and flat, the edge of his tone sending a chill down her spine. The candlelight cast hard shadows over his features, distorting his appearance into something that looked downright demonic. “Not until you explain yourself.”

Thoughtless and emblazoned, she flew up to her feet, anger sparking against his stubbornness as she looked him square in the face. 

“Explain myself?” Who was he to demand anything from her? She didn’t care what he was, who he was; she didn’t deserve to be treated like this. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“That’s up for debate.”

_Pompous, presumptuous, arrogant—_

“You can’t be here.”

His eyes narrowed as he stared down on her, still impossibly tall even when she was on her feet. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’ve been here before.”

_—egotistical, stubborn—_

“Not like this. Get out.”

“I won’t repeat myself, Izayoi.”

_—unbeliveable idiot!_

“Neither will I.”

The tension in the room was rising without a breaking point in sight. Izayoi’s hands were fists at her sides and Toga’s expression had rearranged itself into something stony and cold, impassive at best— hiding his feelings behind a carefully constructed mask. He clicked his tongue, cruelly dismissive of her demands.

“What could I have possibly done to anger you?”

As if he could do no wrong by her. As if he hadn’t toyed with her, evaded her, hidden things from her. Izayoi wanted to scream, but she wasn’t going to take his bait. Frustration curling in the pit of her stomach, she focused on trying to get him to leave. She wouldn't break.

“Nothing.”

His gaze hardened. She didn’t relent or elaborate, holding her ground. 

“Izayoi.” 

“You have a _family,_ ” she said, trying to drive her point home without humiliating herself. “This is improper.”

Then, for a brief moment, the anger seemed to sweep out of him.

“Oh,” and somehow, his demeanor managed to morph into something so condescending that it was a miracle he’d ever managed to attract any woman into his life. “...so _that’s_ what this is about?”

Nothing could’ve made her angrier. After all she’d survived - all that she was currently surviving, in fact - she wouldn’t be spoken down to. She wasn't a child. He had no right to dismiss her feelings so flagrantly, to talk to her like she didn’t understand.

“That? What do you mean, that?” she repeated, her voice trembling. Toga raised an eyebrow at her renewed anger. “What did you expect, Toga? You just conveniently forgot to tell me you have a whole family, somewhere, is that it?”

“I expected you to be rational.”

“Excuse me? Rational?” Seething now, hot tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t offended— offended was too kind of a word to describe what he was evoking in her. “That’s rich. You’re one to talk. Nothing you do is rational.”

“I—” His anger was back, tinted with frustration. She blew right past it.

“You keep secrets from me. You went and spoke with my father without asking me!”

“I don’t recall needing your permission,” he growled, but she didn’t flinch. “It was in your interest, for the sake of your _reputation,_ ” the last word was tilted, weaponized, but the blow missed her.

“Was it? Because now the whole castle thinks we’re involved.”

Toga’s gaze narrowed, a sharp edge to his features that spoke for him. Izayoi wasn’t deterred.

“Everyone I know thinks I’m involved with a _demon_ ,” she said, repeating the point for emphasis. A corner of his mouth curled up in a sneer.

“Would that be so awful?”

“You’re married, Toga. I’m not some—”

“Some what?” he asked, and his voice was colder than she’d ever heard it before. “Some whore?”

Her blood turned to granite. All her anger fell away as a frozen, furious feeling swept over her from head to her toe, not so different than having a bucket of ice water dumped over her head. The air around them felt heavy and she was numb, if only to hide the way he’d torn her apart inside.

“If you don’t leave,” she said, flat and controlled, “I’ll scream.”

The words fell between them like a die cast, dropping out of her mouth and rolling across the floor between them. Toga’s eyes flickered dangerously, the threat communicated as clear as day. 

“Do that,” he warned, the timbre of his voice sweeping low to a rumble, “and you jeopardize the lives of everyone here.” 

It was a far more effective threat, dark in a way that reminded her of spiders and caves, bruised knees and pulled hair, but he didn’t stop there. 

“Including that samurai of yours.”

_Takemaru?_

It took a long moment for her to comprehend his meaning. The premise of the threat was strange; why would he think that was worth specifying? Did he assume Takemaru was close to her? That he meant anything at all? How would he even know that she had a samurai for a shadow? 

Realization hit her in a crack of thunder. 

“...Have you been watching me?”

Twelve days. Twelve days of no contact, without so much as giving her the curtosey of a goodbye at the start, and still he’d been watching her— or having her watched, perhaps. Twelve sleepless, nightmare riddled days and nights. She’d been struggling, wondering about him, angry with him and waiting, barely managing to hold herself together, and he’d done what? Sent an emissary in warning, long after the worst of it was over? Stayed a safe distance away?

All these men were pulling the strings of her life and she was helpless to stop it. Her father, having her watched and planning her future; Takemaru, patrolling her every movement, policing her days; Toga, invading her privacy and life at his whim, toying with her heart all the while. Did she have no autonomy? No privacy?

Toga, for his part, said nothing in response. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were cast aside over his shoulder, drawn towards the door behind him.

“I can’t beli—!”

Suddenly he moved, disappearing from sight; there was a clatter of metal as her candle tipped over and extinguished itself, plunging them into near-darkness. A hand clamped over her mouth and she yelped against it, trapped against his body as he drew her in from behind, caging her smaller form in his arms with his armor pressed hard up against her back. In the corner of her vision she could see the soft shadow of his jaw beside her face as he leaned down over her shoulder, his steel embrace so unyielding that it felt difficult to breathe.

For a brief, overwhelming second, when she realized the exact nature of the opponent she was faced with, fear began to crawl up the back of her throat. But then:

“Izayoi-sama?” From the other side of her door, out on the open walkway that framed the gardens and led out into the palace, a hesitant voice cut through the night. “Izayoi-sama, are you all right?”

_Takemaru._

Her throat went dry. 

“Make him go away,” Toga hissed in her ear, low enough that only she would hear it. “Or I will.”

The threat was clear, but she didn’t linger on it. A thousand other questions were running through her mind. What was he doing? Why would he be so close to her rooms this late at night? Had he heard them arguing? There were too many possibilities, all of them sour and unpleasant, and she didn’t have the time to consider them before Toga let his claws fall away from her mouth.

“...It’s only a nightmare, Takemaru-sama,” she managed, swallowing past the lump in her throat to keep her voice steady. A silver tendril of Toga’s hair fell over her shoulder, slipping freely over his armor.

There was a heavy moment of silence in response. Perhaps he realized how strange his presence was in the moment, because he seemed less confident when he spoke again. Izayoi didn’t care to notice; her heart was beating so loudly she thought her chest might burst.

“Should I send someone to you?”

“No,” she said quickly, just wanting him to go. “I will be fine. Thank you.”

There was another pause, but, thankfully, Takemaru seemed to take her at her word. He left without another question, oblivious to the fact that there was daiyoukai currently holding his charge hostage in her own bedchambers. She could feel her body go lax with relief against Toga’s hold as she listened to the sound of his footsteps gradually fading away, the tension seeming to ebb as she hung in her steeled, forced embrace. There was only the sound of their breathing and the distant pangs of their anger, and if the world was kinder, their argument might’ve ended there. But instead, Toga brought it on himself to break their silence, loosening his grip slightly.

“You have that man lingering outside your door every night, and you worry about being seen as _my_ whore?”

Without thinking, without considering the fact that what she was about to do could very well end in a bloody, painful death, Izayoi whirled around and slapped him across the face.

Or tried to, at least.

His hand closed around her wrist before she even got close to striking distance. Long, pointed claws coiled around her forearm in a reflexive response, stopping the assault halfway through the strike, leaving her trapped in mid-air in the space near his shoulder. It seemed to startle him, though, at least marginally so; his eyes slid away from hers into their farthest corners to stare at the offending appendage, his body held incredibly still.

For a moment that seemed longer than a century, there was only the sound of her heart hammering away in her throat.

_You’re going to die._

Toga’s fingers clenched tighter around her wrist as if answering that small, irrational fear that spoke in the back of her mind, his gaze transferring back from their hands to her face, cutting across the tension with an unnatural glow.

Her eyes had adjusted in the dark. She nearly wished they hadn’t. It would be one thing if she could see his anger, or even his offense, but Toga’s face was cruelly blank, arranged in such a manner that it would be impossible to read anything from it. There was only his eyes and their unrelenting scrutiny, intense as he tried to pry into her— demanding everything of her again, while giving nothing in return.

He could break her, if he wanted. Shatter her wrist into a thousand tiny, unmendable pieces without even blinking. He could devour her, as others had tried before. They were teetering on the edge of his whims, balanced on the precipice of his impossible, hidden thoughts. There was a line in the sand that neither of them had drawn, placed there by some invisible hand that dictated the ways of their separate worlds, and it now beckoned them closer, tempting them to step over it. What waited on the other side was unclear, but she was sure it would be painful all the same. Likely at her expense.

“Woman.”

The world spun, her toes lifted off the floor, and then there was something hard behind her. _The wall,_ she realized harshly, just as her head bounced lightly against the wood. Toga was looming over her, trapping her there with his body and pinning her wrist up near her head. On instinct she reached up with her free hand to try and struggle against him, unhappy to be manhandled like this and not one to let it simply happen — not after everything she’d survived — so he trapped that one too, grabbing it easily and caging her completely against the wall.

“Damn it,” he growled, as if it meant anything at all, and it was all she could do to glare up into his eyes.

“Don’t call me that.” 

It hurt more than she expected. With one cruel, piercing word he had summarized all her fears and anxieties, pulling all the stresses of her world into a single word, weighed down with so much dread. _Whore._ Rumors flew about her as easily as leaves in the wind, these days, taking that assumption with them wherever she went. Demons must have had her, gossipers whispered; willing or otherwise, she was unclean now, desecrated and spoiled. And then even when Izayoi turned away from the world into the safety of her own mind, there were still nightmares waiting. Claws and vines and spiderwebs. Scars drawn across her body in angry, raised lines that she would never be free from. It was too much.

“Don’t.” Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes again, threatening to spill over. “I’m not.”

Lightly, his claws flexed against the wall, slicing into the soft wood. But, finally, his hold weakened. The stiffness of his shoulders relaxed and he slumped forward slightly, no longer using force to hold her in place. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it sounded true.

It didn’t help, but his fading anger did assuage some of her fears. Unable to look him in the face, she stared at the gem embedded in the heart of his armor, trying to convince herself it was the most interesting thing in their world right now. 

_Just leave and let me go,_ a desperate voice begged, safely stowed away in the privacy of her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She wouldn’t beg. If she had anything left to claim of herself, it was her pride, and the world she lived in wouldn’t allow her to let it go. Not when it was all she had.

“Do you want to know why I saved you?”

His words cut through the silence with all the sweeping precision of a sword, slicing through the tension with breathtaking ease. The anger had bled out of his voice, leaving him raw and regretful, his tone low and honest as he leaned over her and still refused to let her go. 

Izayoi wished that she’d been able to hold back her gasp. It was quiet, only a response to her heart skipping a beat in her chest, but humiliating even so. 

“What?”

She hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was anyway, falling out of her idiot mouth without any rational thought.

“Do you want to know why I saved you?” he asked again, repeating every word with gentle care.

She couldn’t bring herself to answer him. Maybe it was because a lump had formed in her throat, or maybe it was because his hands had slid up her wrists, trapping her against the wall palm-to-palm, his fingers splayed between hers and no longer forcing her to stay. If she liked, she could slip away at her own pleasure.

Realizing that she’d lost the ability to speak - or perhaps assuming that she was giving him the silent treatment - Toga peeled himself away and stepped back, leaving her bereft and bewildered.

 _Now?_ she lamented. _Now you want to tell me?_

It was a trick, a trap, and she was about to fall headlong into it.

Bringing her arms down from the wall, rubbing her lightly abused wrist in her other hand, she stared at him as he turned his back and made his way towards the door.

_What’s happening?_

“...Come find me,” he said, pausing at her door. The tip of his claw hung loosely between the panels, soon to press them apart. “If you want to know.”

Somehow, she managed to find her voice.

“And if I don’t?”

The question hung in the air between them, pregnant and unkind, but she was allowed it. After all of this, she was allowed to have a choice.

“Then I’ll leave you be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More art based on this story by [@heavenin--hell](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com), I will engrave it on my tombstone: [Toga and Izayoi](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/post/630282293295153152/based-on-this-chapter-by-loveyou-x3000)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off - this story has been nominated for Best Drama over at [The Feudal Connection](https://feudalconnection.tumblr.com/post/630909704481210368/nomination-loveyou-x3000-congratulations), and I can't say thank you enough!!! I'm really touched and flattered and a whole lot of other emotions, but mostly I'm just glad that you all have been enjoying this story so much. Another thank you to everyone who's been leaving reviews here and comments on [Tumblr](https://loveyou-x3000.tumblr.com). They really mean a lot and I love hearing feedback. <3
> 
> Second - another shout out to [@heavenin--hell,](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/) because this story wouldn't exist without her, and she's been wonderful while we scream at each other over chat about what's happening as I write these chapters. Go follow her, there may be a collaboration between us soon... 
> 
> Third - YASHAHIME!!! I need to make some edits to an earlier chapter featuring Miroku's and Sango's children, because I made an incorrect assumption about Hisui's age, but other than that this story shouldn't need much more adjusting. I'm going to try and get the Sengoku Era portions of this story to fall in line with Yashahime, but it all depends on what gets published when, and what the series tells us.

Izayoi decided to wait twelve days before she would even consider meeting him again. 

It was only fair. She had waited twelve days for him, so he would wait twelve days for her. It was on that first day following their argument that she’d reached that decision and committed to the idea. It would give her time to think. It would give him time to wonder. And, in the end, it would give them both the time they needed to cool off and decide what exactly it was they were fighting over.

Four days passed without incident. Izayoi was able to maintain her composure and return to her life, trying to compartmentalize her feelings despite the fact that she wasn’t always keen on thinking about them in the first place. Thinking about them always led to thinking about _him_ , because Toga was tangled up in her emotions inside her head, and then that inevitably led to thinking about other things. Those other things tended to exacerbate her stress.

Later, when she looked back on these twelve days, she’d be able to recognize how poorly she’d handled her traumas. Bottling them all up and ignoring them had done her no favors, but she’d had no outlet to speak about them even if she’d wanted to. Instead, she’d kept them safely sequestered away in her mind, hidden away, committing them to the dark until she found herself overflowing.

Which was why she woke up screaming on the fifth day, her dreams crawling with spiders and vines and corpses, and she didn’t stop crying until Sadako held her in her arms like a child and let her exhaust herself.

On the sixth day, Takemaru, who must’ve heard her of her troubles because it was his job to know such things, offered to escort her to the orchards. He’d approached her on the walkway outside the residential gardens, claiming that her handmaiden had suggested to him that she might enjoy the slight change of scenery and that he’d be honored to be of help.

Momentarily swayed by his thoughtfulness and the opportunity to leave the stifling atmosphere of her own home, Izayoi had nearly obliged him. But then he’d shifted just slightly where he stood, completely happenstance, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other as she was about to answer, and the light on his face changed. The sun caught his bangs at an odd angle and delineated his features in strange, sharp shadows, casting a black streak across already dark eyes and eyelashes. 

_“Drink,”_ a ghost said, the voice scraping against the back of her skull, and Izayoi remembered another pair of eyes in the dark. She felt the burning sensation of unwanted alcohol pouring down her throat, heard the sound of old bones cracking beneath leather boots, and she realized at that moment why Takemaru’s attentions sometimes made her skin crawl.

_Gosaku._

Their eyes were the same. 

They were different men, of course, but there was something lingering beneath the surface of Takemaru that reminded her distinctly of the spider. Gosaku had been cold and ambitious and confident. Takemaru was much the same, a man who knew himself well enough that he was blind to his own faults, because ambition and confidence mattered more than considering that sometimes, you couldn’t have everything you want.

“Thank you, Takemaru-sama, but,” she’d said softly, changing her mind and quickly finding a quick excuse, “I fear people would mistake your kindness. If you understand my meaning. That’s all anyone seems to assume of me, these days, and I’d hate to besmirch your good name.”

Perhaps that excuse had been the reason that the next afternoon, seven days after Toga had left her behind, Matsu came running through the halls and casually tried to murder her in the middle of lunch.

“Izayoi-sama!”

Startled by the sudden intrusion, Izayoi nearly spilled her tea all over her kimono, but the young woman didn’t care to notice as she hastily bowed and knelt down across the table from her.

“Izayoi-sama, you’ll never believe what I just heard,” she said, blathering before Izayoi could get a greeting in edgewise. She just blinked, setting her cup down and trying to catch up. 

“Something worth scaring me half to death, I hope.”

Matsu blushed immediately, bowing her head again in apology. Izayoi just smiled, hiding her amusement politely behind her hand. The young girl was a raging gossip, but at least she wasn’t gossiping about _her_. It was a welcome change of pace.

“My apologies, my lady,” she said hurriedly, fisting her hands on her knees before looking up again. “But I had to come right away! I knew you had to know! I couldn’t believe it myself—”

“What couldn’t you believe, Matsu-chan?”

“Takemaru-sama,” she said, finally reaching the subject of her excitement. “My lady, I was passing by Lord Mizuno’s quarters with the laundry and - I swear to you I wasn’t _trying_ to listen, I promise - they were talking loudly and—”

“Takemaru-sama often speaks to my father, you know.”

He led the men under her father’s banner and his own. It was expected that they would meet often. There were always issues at hand to be dealt with, skirmishes and bandits on the main roads. Certain demons wandering through the forest, accosting young noblewomen...

“Yes,” Matsu said, crashing through her line of thought, “but it was about _you_ , Izayoi-sama!”

An invisible hand plunged into her chest and squeezed her heart to the point of stopping, sending ice shooting through her veins. 

“About me?”

“Yes! Oh, I’m so happy for you, my lady, he seems like a wonderful man. And handsome, too—”

It was just then that Sadako arrived and interrupted Matsu’s excited prattling to inform her that her parents had summoned her.

Blessedly, Takemaru himself was absent from the meeting.

“He has approached me with a proposal of marriage,” Lord Mizuno was saying. Izayoi knelt with her father and his wife, staring at a knot in the wooden floorboards and doing her best to process the proposition presented to her. Her father didn’t seem to notice how tense she was, or perhaps he was equivocating it to normal nervousness. “It is an auspicious match, I must admit.”

“A true blessing,” Lady Mizuno added. Izayoi’s hands fisted on her knees, hidden beneath the many layers of her sleeves. “He is a noble man.”

She said nothing. 

“But, my dear, you have been through much this year. I acknowledge that,” her father continued, breezing by his wife’s commentary. “I am only asking you to consider it, for now.”

“Husband…”

Lady Mizuno, for her part, seemed to think there was no debate to be had. The correct decision was clear; they should accept and the engagement should be announced, the wedding should be planned, and Izayoi’s future secured. Her opinion on the matter was irrelevant. For a woman in her position, Takemaru was a heaven-sent match, especially considering the circumstances and rumors that she was currently embroiled in. 

That her logic was sound only made it all the worse for the young lady in question.

“We will hear Izayoi’s answer when Takemaru returns,” her father decreed, and the matter was finished. “I have decided. I know she will make the right choice.”

_The right choice._

There was no option. There was only the illusion of choice.

Fortunately for Izayoi, her potential fiance had been sent away on other matters, so she was allotted one last week of freedom before she’d have to make her decision. Seven days, at most; and Toga had five left to wait. 

For the next three days, Izayoi seriously considered the prospect of becoming the wife of a samurai. It wasn’t as though she could say no without consequences, but it was her future and it was impossible to escape thinking about it. She knew Takemaru could provide. Strange as he was, he didn’t blame her for what had happened to her like others did, didn’t lend an ear to the gossip, and his ambition would likely lead him to high places. She would be secure. Their children would lead good lives. Her step-mother was right— it was a smart match, and better women had been married to worse men.

On the night of the eleventh day, Izayoi laid down in bed and tried to settle her thoughts, knowing what the right choice was meant to be, but unable to shake the feeling that it was wrong. Her dreams had shifted ever since she’d met with her parents, the dark memories of caves now giving way to other thoughts. Takemaru’s face was haunting her. She was expecting him, now - expecting to stare at his eyes again and feel lost, pried open and pulled apart - and she fell asleep slowly, praying that she could find clarity and mercy in her dreams instead of terrors and sorrows.

For once, someone answered her pleas.

Izayoi opened her mind’s eye to find herself sitting underneath a tall, grand tree, bathed in white sunlight. There was nothing cold or dark about the world. She was warm and the ground was soft beneath her, spring petals drifting through the air, floating pink against a silver sky as she sat on a vineless, barbless knoll of green grass.

There was a lake shimmering in the distance. Light danced across the surface, catching her attention, lulling her into a peaceful daze as her mind finally found some relief in sleep. She knew she was dreaming, but only distantly. Not enough to control this world, but enough to be conscious in it; to enjoy the peacefulness she found so difficult to acquire in life.

She was drifting when someone sneezed in her lap.

Izayoi looked down, neither startled or scared by the noise, too numb to think about what that might mean. In doing that, she found eyes pinned on her, but these weren’t the ones she was used to seeing. There was nothing dark or intense about the golden wonders that stared back up at her, both small and large at the same time, brimming with a sort of love she had never seen before.

_A baby._

Her baby, she knew. Swaddled in white and laying across her lap, he was nameless and perfect and _right,_ propped up against her knees and reaching towards the sky. He tried to catch the errant sakura that floated nearby, grabbing with his pudgy little fingers and giggling with triumph when he managed to fist one in his tiny palm. 

She woke when he sneezed again, a flower falling to rest on his tiny little nose, and suddenly she knew what her choice had to be.

It was that morning, on the twelfth day, that Izayoi decided that Toga was worth seeking out, if only for the sake of the little baby boy that had visited her in her dreams.

———————❖———————

Whether it was fate or pure coincidence that Takemaru was away, Izayoi wasn’t sure, but she was grateful for it. The men tended to be lax with their duties when he wasn’t breathing down their necks, so it wasn’t hard to sneak by them when she decided to go find Toga. Waiting for the cover of night to disguise in her escape, she slipped through the familiar crack in the back castle wall and out into the forest, unnoticed and free.

In that moment, her future with a dark-eyed husband laid down before her and fell still, slumbering beneath a demon’s moon.

Izayoi pulled her robe tighter around her, wearing only her white sleeping clothes underneath the heavy indigo top layer, hoping it would be satisfactory enough to keep out the cool night air. Winter was still some ways off, but autumn nights could bite, and she wasn’t sure how long she would be out in the forest. She wasn’t sure about a lot of things, in fact— she didn’t have a plan. Given that Toga hadn’t indicated how she should find him, she had to make the assumption that he’d simply know when she tried, because… he was a demon, she supposed. It was flawed logic, but passable enough. The real question was whether or not he would still be paying attention for her after her twelve days of silence.

Considering all that and everything else, Izayoi settled on trying to do what she thought he would expect, and headed towards the clearing where they’d met so many times before.

 _If he expects you to come at all,_ she thought absently, and then snorted at the idea.

They’d managed to find their way back to the beginning. Him, baiting her into the forest with answers; her, chasing him with questions, wondering if he’d expected her to come to him at all. They were circling each other, harboring secrets and dancing around curiosities, unable to break the cycle.

Izayoi sighed and chewed the inside of her cheek, trying not to let her mind wander. All her dreams and emotions aside - that baby and his golden eyes, already fading away into silver sunlight - this meeting was supposed to be a transaction. He’d made a promise and she intended to see him deliver on it. If he didn’t, she would leave, and commit herself to the life she knew she was expected to make.

_Takemaru._

It wasn’t an appealing thought. But even so, she didn’t know what would come next if Toga did answer her question. There were still obstacles, and she still found herself wondering what exactly it was he wanted from her.

The stars glittered in the sky as she stepped out into the small clearing where she’d once nearly died, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves hanging above her head. Toga was nowhere to be seen. The tiny glade was empty and serene, splashes of pale moonlight dancing across the ground as twisted branches swayed overhead. The galaxy above her head looked down on her, stunning and silent.

 _All right,_ she said to no one, tucking the thought safely away in her mind as she readied herself. _Come find me._

All she could do was settle in to wait, gathering the skirts of her robes and folding down to the ground, sitting beneath the tree she’d rested under a dozen times before. Leaning back against the bark, she pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them close, resting her chin on her knees. 

Tired and more than a little exhausted, it wasn’t long before her thoughts began to drift out of focus. The night was calm and peaceful, if not slightly chilly, and she finally let herself relax now that she was away from her home. There was no one here whispering or judging. There were only the wilds, the soft twinkling stars overhead, and the whisper of the breeze against her skin.

Before she knew it, her eyelids had slid shut and she was listing, head tilting to the side as she sunk sideways into sleep.

Then, some time later, there was a hand on her shoulder, gently squeezing her awake.

“You shouldn’t fall asleep out here,” someone said fondly. “Demons wander these woods.”

Wisps of smoky, foggy dreams clung to the back of her eyelids, veiling her consciousness with a gray haze. Izayoi mumbled something that even she was unsure of, squeezing her eyes shut a little tighter.

The hand on her shoulder - her good shoulder, the one that hadn’t been nearly ripped off her body - squeezed again, shaking her with a gentle insistence.

“Izayoi.”

Slowly shrugging off her grogginess, Izayoi breathed deep, nuzzling her cheek against her knee. The heavy weight on her shoulder felt familiar, a large cradle of warmth over her clothes that pricked in five points, clawed over her small frame. The voice was familiar, too; deep and soothing, though it sounded a little hollow in this moment.

There was a dim spark of recognition somewhere behind her eyes and she blinked against it, finally forcing herself awake.

“Good morning, hime,” Toga greeted, and his hand fell away from her shoulder.

It wasn’t morning, of course. When she lifted her head to see him, it was still very much nighttime, the moon playing witness and watching them through the boughs of the tall trees.

“Toga.”

He was crouching in front of her, hands folded between his knees and his weight balanced fully on the balls of his feet, adorned in his armors and furs. He looked as perfect as he ever had, gleaming under the stars wherever their light could find him. So’unga stretched in a diagonal over his shoulder, another fraying sword pinned against his hip. 

The silence stretched for a long time, both of them silenced by the weight of their last meeting. The memory was hollow and bitter, carved in between them like a great canyon, its mouth lying empty in wait, expecting someone to tumble over its edge.

“...Twelve days, huh?” Toga finally asked, breaking the spell cast between them. Izayoi sighed. 

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

The topic met its abrupt end there, awkward and uneasy. Toga looked to the ground for a moment before reaching some unspoken decision with himself, rising back to his feet and moving to her side. Facing her directly, he folded his legs down and seiza, straight-backed and stiff, hands resting on his knees. She watched his rise and fall in silence, eventually putting her chin back on her knees and staring forward, away from him.

“So,” he hedged. She could feel his eyes on her, two golden flames against the night. “I imagine you don’t want to hear my apologies.”

“No,” she agreed, hugging her legs closer to her chest. A part of her mind wandered towards her dreams, trying to remember the child she’d held in her lap, but the image of him was nearly gone. “Apologize later. You have something more important to tell me.”

“I see.” 

Everything felt… stilted. Tilted, maybe, and definitely strange. Izayoi wouldn’t chase him for the answer; she waited, wondering why this was so difficult. Toga had never struck her as capable of being awkward, but now he was so tense and closed-off that there was no other way to describe him. This question bothered him more than he’d ever admit, but she couldn’t fathom why. 

_What are you hiding?_

Eventually, he sighed, resigning himself to his fate as he began to speak.

“Which time?”

It was the wrong thing to say. A hot flame of frustration sparked in her chest and she whipped her head around, pulling up away from her knees. Hell would open its mouth and swallow this world whole before he ever answered a single damn question without trying to escape it.

“ _Which time?_ ” she demanded, composure slipping. “The first time, Toga, stop trying to—”

“You were very small,” he said abruptly, and the words knocked her argument flat to the ground. “I pitied your mother, I suppose.”

Everything stopped. Her heart, her mind, her lungs— the world around her skidded, halting at the sound of his voice. Toga merely stared back at her, expression flat in the way it always was when he was trying to hide his emotions.

_Mom?_

“My mother?” she said, trying to ignore how her voice cracked. He nodded once.

“As I understand it, she’d taken you to the lake for the day,” he explained, voice painfully monotone. “You’d become violently ill. Her escort had rushed ahead to fetch a healer, but your condition worsened, so she attempted to take you back home herself. She crossed my path when she cut through the forest. I could smell the berries on your breath.”

When she had been small and her mother had been barely pregnant with the child that would one day kill her, she and Izayoi had spent a summer afternoon at the lake. The day had been wiped clean from Izayoi’s memory, but she still remembered the sensations of it: the pleasant breeze, the bitter berries, the smell of bile and the dry taste of charcoal; medicines shoved down her throat as a fever raged through her veins. Her mother had looked away for one moment too long and she’d eaten a handful of poisonous berries, nearly killing herself in the process.

“You told her?” Izayoi heard herself speak even though she hadn’t meant to, reeling back in memory. 

“Knowing what you’d eaten likely gave your healers the time they needed to save your life,” he mused, thoughtful. “I can’t imagine she got you home quickly, and considering the smell…” He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you’d survive when she ran off.”

“But I did.”

He nodded. “You did.”

She stared at him, knuckles white around her legs. What he was telling her was a surprise, but she still found herself struggling to understand. Why did it matter? This was his territory, as he’d told her before. That he’d met her mother once was unexpected, but it made sense. 

“...That doesn’t answer my question,” she managed, proud that she managed to keep her voice from shaking. 

“It does,” Toga countered. His claws twitched on his knees, then curled into fists. “I saved you from that flower demon because saving you had become habit, Izayoi.”

“A habit?” she repeated, completely lost. “Twice is not a habit. Stop being evasive—”

“I’m not, and it wasn’t twice,” he insisted, a sharp edge cracking around his tone. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve saved you. That’s the truth.”

She blinked and tried to understand, but he didn’t stop talking.

“You would run out into this forest - _my_ forest - as a child, unattended, without considering the consequences. You were the perfect prey.”

“You were watching me?”

He shook his head. 

“No. I was hunting demons who hunted humans,” he emphasized every word, trying to pin her with them, “and they were hunting _you._ ”

Izayoi stared at him. She didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t make sense. She’d never met him before she’d been snared by the flower. Perhaps he’d seen her, like he was saying, but she didn’t remember ever being in danger in the forest. She certainly didn’t remember being saved.

Toga sighed and she realized he was looking at her again, still hiding himself behind a stony mask, but it didn’t last long. He turned his head and looked away, staring aside into the depths of the forests that she had been focused on before.

“That flower demon, Ren. He was the first that managed to get close. I only knew what had happened because I smelled your blood on the wind,” he explained. “When I found you, you were nearly dead.”

Izayoi waited. 

“I almost left you there,” he admitted. “There was no guarantee you’d survive the flower dying, let alone a recovery. But…”

“But?”

Suddenly, the world turned to crystalline glass, and her question threatened to shatter everything. 

“If you died, the forest would lose your scent.” 

There it was: a crack in his composure, skating across the glass, fracturing the ice to reveal a hint of the truth. Now that it had broken, everything threatened to spill out, leaving him in a rush of careless words. 

“What I didn’t anticipate was that you’d seek me out, or that you’d do it twice. Or a third time, or a fourth…” He was so tense that Izayoi thought he might snap in two. “...or that you’d be completely undeterred by threats against your own life.”

“So why did you save me, Toga?” she asked again, pressing her words into his fissures, wanting him to open up before he mended his seams and closed off again, “Just tell me!”

“Because I wanted to protect you!”

Finally.

“You wanted…?” _To protect me?_

“Ever since…” his stiff posture finally broke, hand flying up to his face as the mask splintered apart and he pressed his fingers into his brow, obscuring his eyes. He started again. “All I’ve done has been to protect you, Izayoi, and I have no intentions of stopping.”

“I don’t—”

“Did your father tell you what I told him?”

It was a whiplash of a subject change, causing Izayoi to stumble in her mind. Her words came out equally as awkward, trying to catch up to his topic.

“Uhm, yes, I think.” She searched back through her memories, trying to find her father’s words, “He said you were concerned about— about our safety? If we could protect ourselves?”

Toga snorted sharply, lacking all humor. His hand fell away from his face and his eyes flicked to hers, meeting her gaze properly for the first time since he’d started speaking.

“I told him that if I found you in a demon’s custody again, I wouldn’t be bringing you home.”

_What?_

He’d threatened to steal her. 

_No,_ she realized. That wasn't the threat. He’d gone to her father and told him that if he couldn't keep her safe, if she were put in danger again, he’d take responsibility over her himself, and… _Oh._ The implication was clear.

“Izayoi,” Toga’s shoulders slumped forward ever so slightly, “I tire of chasing rumors that I would prefer to be true.” 

She swallowed hard, turned to stone in front of him. Her heart still pounded despite it, thundering against her ribcage as she stared at him, and, ridiculously, she found happiness starting to flicker to life in her veins. Stupid, girlish hope. He'd threatened to take her away...

 _No._ She tried to temper her thoughts, but it wasn’t working. She couldn't let herself fall for this. He was a demon and she was human. They couldn’t have a future together, no matter how hard she fell into her dreams. There was only sadness in a life like that. She’d be an affair, a toy, and eventually he would move on, leaving her without a future. She’d been warned of such things her entire life. Men would say anything to get what they wanted. Demons would do worse. They were built to lure humans in, attractive in all the right ways, and dangerous to the bitter end.

Like Gosaku. Like Tsuchigumo. Like Kaoru. Spiders and silk and red flowers.

“You’re—” she tried to say, but he cut her off.

“Married,” he finished bluntly. “I am. But I fail to see how that’s relevant.” He sighed, tensing again. “She’s not concerned with you, if that’s what you’re worried about. Our child is grown.”

“She,” Izayoi faltered, taken off guard. “She knows about me?”

“Of course she does. She stepped in when Ryukotsusei—” He stopped, frustrated, and restarted on a new topic. He seemed confused. “I was under the impression that human men took multiple brides. Am I mistaken?”

“I… yes. Er, no,” she tried, “You’re not. Some do... “ she shook her head, suddenly somersaulting in her mind. What was he implying? That they should, that they even could? “But we can’t.”

Toga froze.

“We can’t?” he repeated, and suddenly he was a thousand years away from her. 

Izayoi didn’t know what was happening.

“...Can we?” she asked, breathless and confused, tossed between so many different emotions.

There was only silence, and then—

Toga laughed.

It was a barking sound, unbidden and sudden. Startled, Izayoi tried to remember a time where she’d ever heard him laugh aloud, but failed to find any occurrence. That didn’t stop him, though; he laughed still, shaking his head, rubbing his face with his hand. 

“Gods,” he cursed softly, finally calming as he looked down at her through the night. “You had no idea.”

He wanted to protect her. He wanted her safe, he wanted her home, and… he was in love with her.

_Oh no._

She was falling, because she loved him too.

“Toga?”

Her legs had slipped free of her arms and she was sitting straight up, just staring at his hand as he reached across the divide and slipped his fingers into a stray lock of her hair, tucking it back behind her ear. 

“What do I have to do?” he asked her, cradling her cheek. “Tell me. Anything you want.” 

Her hand floated up to rest on top of his, palm brushing against the back of his hand, but then she was moving, reaching for him - across that great canyon, recklessly selfish, tripping over the line drawn in the sand - and slipping her hands around his neck, drawing him down to her.

He was over her, falling, dipping down into the dark. Guided by her hands, he became pliable in a way only she could make him, and the great Inu no Taisho was lost. They were falling together, stupid and blind and foolish, stumbling onto a path that they’d never be able to escape.

With a kiss, they sealed their fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Seiza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiza) :: Formal tradition of sitting in Japanese culture; sitting while kneeling.
> 
> EDIT 1/13/2021  
> General FYI, from a comment response below:
>
>> ... **it is not my intention, nor will it ever be, to draw any parallels between Toga/Izayoi and Sesshomaru & Rin.** Though I probably haven't defined Izayoi's age in this story, she is well into her young adulthood; **she is NOT, in any way, a child,** and her romantic relationship with Toga is between two full-grown adults who met under extraordinary circumstances. His "protection" of her in her youth was coincidence; she roamed his forests, and he would not let innocent blood spill under his watch. That is all. His romantic interest - or any notable interest at all - happened after she was ensnared by the flower demon(s), well into her maturity.


	17. Chapter 17

**INUYASHA**

Kagome made a noise that InuYasha couldn’t describe.

It was a little bit like a squeal, but mostly like she was choking on something. His ears swiveled down flat against his head as he cracked open his eyes, staring down at her from over her shoulder. Bracketed between his legs, his wife was fawning over his mother’s journals, resting her back against his chest as she paged through the old papers. 

“They’re so cute!” she was saying, caught up in the story. “Gods, it took them long enough…”

InuYasha snorted and closed his eyes again, tilting his head against her hair. His claws circled against the red robe draped over her belly, gently tracing circles on the underside of her baby bump. Or her baby mountain, as it were. 

_Stupid._

It wasn’t an unkind thought, but he kept it to himself just to be safe, not wanting her to misunderstand. If he’d learned anything over this past year, it’d been that it was better to keep his mouth shut. Kagome was more fragile than usual, full up on those things she called ‘hormones,’ and he’d become a regular recipient of her whiplash mood swings. Having no desire to be _sat_ into the floorboards tonight, InuYasha tempered his mood and distracted himself with the smell of her hair, letting the glow of her pregnancy smother him. 

His mother had never told him any of these stories. Centuries ago, when he’d been stupid and small and curious, she’d only ever answered his questions with happy memories. What his father looked like, what he sounded like, and what she thought he smelled like. That he had died protecting them, and that he had loved them both very much. At the time it had been enough, but as he’d grown older - as he’d continued on without her - he’d always wondered, no matter how much he tried to tell himself he didn’t.

How had his father died? How had his parents met? All that had been hidden from him, tucked safely away inside her box of memories for a time when he was old enough to understand.

 _Doesn’t change anything, though._ As nice as it was to know that his mother had had some fleeting moments of happiness with the Inu no Taisho before the world had gone to shit, he couldn’t forget that. It didn’t change anything.

She would still die, alone on that hill, and Sesshomaru would still burn everything to the ground.

“InuYasha?” Kagome’s voice reached back through the centuries, through the smoke and embers, to catch his cheek in her hand, guiding him back to her. He opened his eyes only slightly, staring at her from underneath his eyelashes. “Are you ok?”

“Keh.” He turned his head to kiss her palm, looking away. The ghost of his mother’s face lingered in his mind, calm and serene even without a beating heart. He remembered reaching out to wipe the tears off her cold cheeks, trembling and scared. “M’fine.”

Somewhere in his chest, his heart ached. But she didn’t need to know that.

“InuYasha.”

“It’s nothing,” he insisted, lying a little. “Really.”

The look she pinned him with was unyielding, and, with an air that he recognized as her stubborn care, she folded Izayoi’s journals aside and put her hand over his, clearly intending not to let him slide out of this one.

InuYasha sighed. 

_They will not care,_ Sesshomaru had told him once, when his hair was jet black and he’d still been dumb enough to hope he might have a real brother. _They will not see you. Don’t you understand, you little abomination? The only worth you have is as a corpse._

Still, he spoke, because Kagome was not Sesshomaru, and Sesshomaru had never been right in the first place.

“Just…” He looked away from his wife, staring at the wooden box his mother had stowed all her secrets away in, desperately trying to forget her dead eyes, if only for a moment. “Remember there’s no happy ending.”

There was only the hill. The wilds. The fire.

Kagome said nothing, at first. Her silence made his ears flatten again, twitching down as he waited for her to say something. She was always going on and on about how he never told her what was on his mind, and he was trying to share more, he really was, but—

_Shit._

The scent of her tears stabbed him right in the highest part of his nose, and he panicked.

“What—?!” He whipped his head back around, startled. “Don’t— Why are you crying? Don’t cry!”

He knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but that was the only way he knew how to react.

“I’m sorry,” Kagome blubbered, hiding her face behind her hands. She wasn’t trying to pull away from him; she was closing in on herself instead, because there was no running from anything when you were as big as she was. “I’m so sorry, I know, I just—” 

_Seven hells._

“Oi.” He was the absolute worst husband in the world. “Hey…”

Forcing himself to focus, InuYasha turned her around in his lap so she was straddling him, her belly a massive obstacle of red in between them. He curled his fingers around her wrists, squeezing lightly.

“I’m sorry,” she was still blathering, hiccupping as he pried her palms away from her face. “I know they’re dead and-and I know it doesn’t change anything but—”

“Stop it.” He placed her hands on his chest and then reached forward, raking his one hand through her bangs and cupping her cheek with the other. He wiped away a trail of tears with the pad of his thumb, ignoring the thundering of his heart. “Stop. I shouldn’t’ve said anything.”

“No!” She shook her head against his palm, hands fisting loosely against his collarbone where he’d put them. Her eyes were shining with tears. “No, InuYasha, I want you— I want you to tell me things like this. I want,” she paused, looking down, almost ashamed. Her cheeks were flushed. “I want to know when you’re feeling this way.” She sniffled again, hiccupping on a sob. “I’m-I’m sorry.”

InuYasha sighed and let his hands fall away so he could hold her, pulling her as far in as he could. Her head dipped onto his chest as he kissed her crown, guilt fluttering in his ribcage.

“You ain’t got nothin’ to apologize for, ‘Gome.”

Not knowing what else to say - and, admittedly, a little afraid that he would just make it worse if he did - InuYasha just held his wife, letting his chest rumble every now and again to hopefully calm her down. It took a while, but soon her sobs and hiccups turned into sniffles, the trembling of her shoulders finally shaking out.

Listening to the dark and occasional flicker and burn of the candles, he rubbed her back, content to wait all night for her to speak or to hold her there if she fell asleep.

But, eventually, she spoke.

“What happened to her?”

InuYasha swallowed down his sigh. Kagome sounded rough and weak, her throat already raw from crying.

“Mom?” he wondered, even though he already knew.

“Yeah.”

He traced his claws up and down her spine, forcing himself to keep his thoughts on the present instead of the past.

“...If I told you that, you’d be more of a blubbering mess than you are now.”

She pulled up and back to look at him, some of her stubbornness returned, but mostly, she just looked tired. “InuYa—”

“No,” he said, but not unkindly. He reached out to set her hair in place, peeling away a few strands that had matted to her wet cheeks. “I’ll tell you, one day. I promise. After we get through all of that,” he nodded towards the box and the journals, and then, with a little smirk, he poked her belly, “and this.”

Kagome huffed, but finally let it all go. In that retreat, however, there were only more tears; he could see the next tide coming, as sure as ocean waves hit the coast.

“Keh. Come on, stupid.” 

He put his hands under her legs and lifted her off of him, helping her down onto the futon properly so she could rest. He lay down on his back and she curled up alongside him, her belly jutting out over his hip and one of her legs tossed over his. Hair pooling across his arm where she pillowed her head, Kagome nuzzled in as he pinned his other hand behind his hand, cushioned by the nest of pillows they’d accumulated from this time and her own. His robe acted as her blanket tonight, because they both knew it was only a matter of time before she complained about the heat— even in the dead of winter.

Growing a life inside yourself wasn’t easy, after all.

Once they were settled, InuYasha leaned over to kiss her forehead, hoping that the worst of that was over. She whimpered a little and draped her arm over his chest, pulling herself in close.

“Isn’t it worth it, though?” she wondered after a while, hugging him as best she could. InuYasha stared down at her and crooked the arm behind her head down so he could reach her back, gently smoothing circles over her spine. “Even if it’s not a happy ending.”

“What’s worth it, woman?”

“Knowing they were in love?” 

He snorted softly through his nose. “I already knew that.”

The candlelight was comforting, casting them in a golden glow. Finally, the ghosts of the past faded, chased away by the crying woman in his arms. By her love and her ridiculous devotion.

“Did you?” 

He pressed his forehead against hers, leaning in to steal a kiss. How he’d gotten so lucky, he’d never know.

“Yeah.” When she sniffled again, he nudged her nose with his, pulling her in close. “I knew.”

If there was anything he’d ever been sure of, it was that.


	18. Chapter 18

_“I’ll come for you tomorrow,”_ he’d told her. _“Stay the night with me. We can talk.”_

Talk.

That’s all they’d been doing this entire time. Talking. About everything. About nothing. But now, finally, it seemed as if they’d talk about something.

Izayoi waited for him as the night grew dark, sitting at her vanity and running a comb through her hair. She’d been distracted the entire day, unable to focus on even the simplest of tasks, and barely managing to hold a conversation through dinner. Toga had taken her home not long after she’d kissed him - and then he’d kissed her, and then she’d kissed him again, over and over and over, because she could - citing the excuse of the hour. Which had been valid enough, but she suspected he’d had other motives— namely, to put space between them. 

Then he’d left her with those words, the promise to answer all her questions laced up in them.

_We can talk._

Having nothing else to do but fuss with her appearance, Izayoi sighed and put her comb down on the vanity, gazing at herself in the looking glass. Absently, she smoothed out the perceived imperfections of her skin, pressing her fingers along her cheeks and jaw, lifting and pulling. Trying to set things into some semblance of what she considered beautiful.

It seemed silly now to feel so insecure, but she couldn’t help it. Toga was impossibly ethereal, handsome beyond measure, and in comparison she was… human. Out of her depth. Mortal and imperfect, subject to the ravages of time. The fleeting nature of her youth seemed ever-present now, pressing down on her from all sides. How long would it be until she wrinkled, until she grew old and ugly beside his immortal beauty? 

By happenstance, she caught the sight of a scar peeking out under the edge of her kimono, a single tendril of red and silver chasing across her collarbone. Her reflection hurried to tug her collar closed, hiding the evidence of her mortality and her trials. The sudden reminder of those angry, red scars wasn’t the least bit helpful in the face of her mounting insecurities, but there was nothing she could do besides cover them. 

A few more unhelpful thoughts began to creep out of the shadows, but she was abruptly ripped away from them when silver appeared in the corner of her reflection.

“Hello.”

Izayoi startled terribly, muffling a yelp behind her hand as Toga’s golden eyes sparkled at her in the looking glass. He was crouched low behind her, dressed in his full regalia, watching her reflection with plain amusement. Her heart felt like it had jumped straight into her throat, thundering away underneath her pulse.

“Toga!” the admonishment was barely a whisper as she whipped around to face him, trying to catch her breath. He was smirking, insufferable as he was. “Gods, you can’t scare me like that.”

“I think I just did.”

She made a face at him, shamelessly pouting, and he chuckled.

“Apologies.” Standing, he extended his hand down to her, offering to help her to her feet. He kept his voice low, aware that the house hadn’t quite fallen into complete silence yet. “Are you ready?”

Izayoi huffed, but she nodded and took his hand anyway, palm flat against his as he hauled her up. The ridiculous ease of his strength had her stumbling a little, falling right into his chest— as he’d likely intended.

“Let’s go, then.”

Before she could even think to say anything else, he wound his arm around her waist and pinned her to his side, the ground disappearing from underneath her feet with a hitch of his forearm. It took him only a few silent strides before they were through the door, his feet stepping effortlessly off the walkway and into the air, gliding them forward and up into the skies. It knocked the air right out of her lungs, as it always did, and her fingers scrabbled against the edge of his armor until she was able to hinge them securely over its ridge.

_Gods._

Their path arched high above the castle walls, over the gardens and buildings, and even over the unsuspecting heads of every guard standing at their post. Soon there was nothing but the wilds beneath their feet and the glittering galaxies above their heads, white starlight and pale moonlight illuminating his invisible path through the sky.

Once Izayoi got her bearings about her, feeling secure enough in his hold to look at the world rotating beneath them, it wasn’t hard to realize he was heading in a new direction. Their clearing was to the north of the castle, but they were heading due west— towards the coast, she knew, and over a great swath of land that didn’t fall under her father’s influence.

“Where are we going?” she called over the winds, pressing her face closer to him to guard herself from the chill. Protected by only her sleeping clothes and a heavy robe over top of them, she had very little defense against the night air. 

“Somewhere new,” he answered. Slowly, they began to dip to a lower altitude, easing the sting of the cold somewhat. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, slinking back slightly to press more firmly against him, using his body as a shield. Distracted, she didn’t waste her energy being annoyed at his usual evasive answers.

“I’ll be fine.”

His responding grunt didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t say anything more about it. 

It didn’t take them long to reach ‘somewhere new.’ Just as Izayoi’s fingers began to ache on his armor, pale white and brittle, there was a break in the tree canopy in front of them, revealing the familiar architecture of what had to be a nobleman’s home. Not realizing that it was their destination, she barely spared it any thought, only noting that it seemed out of place without a neighboring village. They’d passed by one a few moments before, but judging by the speed at which Toga traveled, it wasn’t terribly nearby. But then—

“Hold on.”

Toga dropped. Their smooth flight abruptly fell into a bolting dive towards the ground, his descent so sudden and quick that her stomach bottomed out and she screamed, unable to control herself. She could hear Toga laughing through the wind as he gripped her closer, and, of course, there was no jolt or crash as he stepped down in the empty courtyard, leaving her wind-swept and frowning when he finally set her on her feet. 

“Easy, now,” he chuckled, hand on her shoulder when she swayed a little.

Huffing, she pushed her hair out of her face, feeling off balance. “You can’t just—”

But then his hand was on her cheek, cradling her face and tipping her up, drawing her near, and he was kissing all her protests away. 

_Oh._

Now she was swaying for a different reason, falling into the feeling of his mouth, his tongue on hers, his breath hot against her lips. He was trying to kill her, she thought. Trying to pull her out of herself, to take everything she was and make it a part of him. Outside her own body, she heard herself moan a little, felt her hand curl around his wrist, even as she tried to pull away, not wanting to be distracted— not wanting to get lost in him just yet.

He dragged his teeth over her bottom lip as he let her go, smirking at what she knew was the blush on her cheeks. Her entire body felt like it had been set aflame, but she forced down the strange urges stirring low in her belly, pulling away from him entirely. He caught her hand on the withdraw, though, lacing their fingers together so she couldn’t go too far. 

The warmth pooling in her heart fountained back up to her cheeks, but she didn’t dare pull her hand away from his. 

“Where are we?”

They were standing in the middle of an empty mansion courtyard, not so different from the residence she lived in, though hers was sequestered away by castle walls and this was not. The building appeared to be somewhat expansive, but it had clearly been abandoned; there were untamed weeds crawling up the short walls surrounding the property, and the mansion stood with a somewhat eerie presence, empty and hollow despite the fact that it must’ve been full of life, once. 

“I can’t bring you to my home. Not now, at least,” he said, in lieu of a straight answer. “But I’ve stayed here on occasion. The villagers believe it’s haunted by demons.” He tugged her hand gently with a playful smile, leading her towards the entryway. “I suppose they’re not entirely wrong.”

Matching his long strides as best she could, she pulled herself up alongside him, squeezing his hand and reaching across to place her other hand on his vambrace. Moonlight shimmered around them, framing the shadows of the house as they began to walk through its open halls.

“What happened to the people that lived here?” 

“I’m not sure. It was abandoned long before I ever came across it.” He shrugged, leading her down the walkways, clearly following a path he knew. “But it’s yours, if you like.”

Her heart stuttered, tripped, and nearly stopped.

“Mine?”

“You can do with it what you will.” He was still talking, apparently not hearing her. “Make it your own. I’ve had one of the buildings cleared already, but—”

The future he saw for them was unraveling in front of her, the threads of his imaginings laid out to be woven together with her own. He was giving her a _home._ A place to stay, to thrive, to—

“Toga.”

She stopped in the middle of a walkway, pulling him up short. For a heartbreaking second, she hated herself for halting the future he was trying to unspin for her, but there was no denying that they couldn’t fall headlong into this. One wrong step and everything would fall apart.

“We need to talk about all this, first.”

For a brief moment, he looked a little surprised, a little hurt, but then his gaze softened and he sighed, nodding.

“Yes. My apologies. I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Izayoi squeezed his hand to reassure him, smiling stiffly, swallowing down her own sadness and letting him lead her through the dusty halls. His eagerness was sweet and she couldn’t deny that she envied it. That confidence that came to him so easily was impossible for her to possess. Every time he set his mind to something, he didn’t even consider the possibility that he might not be able to get his way. The rest of the world’s opinions didn’t matter to him. The past didn’t matter. But for Izayoi, it felt as though she couldn’t ever move forward without first looking back.

“How long have you been staying here?” she asked, mostly to distract herself.

They turned a corner around the smaller building at the back of the property, which stood silently alongside the gardens, overgrown and currently dying in the waning months of autumn. The ponds and streams under the arched bridges were deathly still, reflecting the night sky above in a glassy, trembling image of twinkling stars.

Toga shrugged. “On and off since the summer, perhaps.” Stopping in front of the only door that led into the building from the gardens, he opened the shoji for her, releasing her hand and stepping aside. “After you.”

Izayoi glanced inside, hugging herself against the cold without his warmth. A part of her had expected an atmosphere similar to the rest of the mansion - cold, dreary, and eerie, devoid of life - but what she saw instead was a large, welcoming space, flickering with orange firelight. The room was rather empty overall, but it was far cleaner than the rest of the house. Sparkling, really; the floors were polished and shining against the fire crackling away in the floor hearth, nearly every wall panel and door decorated with masterfully painted landscapes. The ridiculous notion of Toga on his hands and knees scrubbing like a scullery maid came to mind, but before she could laugh he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

“C’mon,” he murmured over her ear, squeezing her gently in the imitation of a hug. “You’re cold.”

He guided her over to the fireside and she followed, feeling dreamlike as she knelt down at the irori. The warmth was more than welcome, washing over her in a comforting blanket that chased feeling back into her fingers and toes, a dull ache beginning to throb the tip of her nose. Toga wandered into the corner of her vision and fed the dwindling flames another log before stepping back, beginning to tug at the cords and clasps of his armor. 

She cast her gaze back towards the flames out of politeness, warming her hands as she listened to the familiar clanging of armor being removed and thudding to the floor. Soon, he kicked off his boots and then he was folding down to sit beside her, draping his pelt behind them both. It was unnaturally warm even through her clothing, but she wasn’t complaining. 

“Better?” he wondered. 

Izayoi nodded, rubbing her warmed palms against her thighs. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, exactly, but it was expectant. 

“So,” Toga murmured eventually, reaching out between them and tucking her hair back behind her ear. The heat that immediately flooded her face wasn’t from the fire. “What do you want to know?”

Izayoi sighed, sobered at once. Settling in fully and sitting on her side, falling out of seiza because there was no point for propriety, anymore, she finally said:

“Tell me about her.”

Toga didn’t seem entirely surprised by the request, but she could tell it wasn’t a subject he wanted to broach. 

“What exactly?” he asked, though he was quick to elaborate. “There’s much I could say about her, Izayoi. Enough to fill the night. So tell me what bothers you and I will try and put you at ease.”

She frowned a little, not expecting the question to be rounded back on her. Maybe she should have expected it, but it was difficult to verbalize her thoughts. Even if his demon wife wasn’t ‘concerned’ with her, as he’d claimed, that didn’t mean she wasn’t an unwelcome addition to his family.

“I just…” she sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t want anyone hurt, is all.”

His mouth pulled into a thin line, but there was some amusement in it.

“She won’t be. She isn’t.” he added, insistent. “Our relationship is not the same.” 

A brief moment of silence passed where he considered her concern, his eyes drifting towards the fire in front of them. 

“She and I joined for power and influence, then had a son for the sake of legacy. We raised him together. But as the centuries passed, we drifted. Sometimes towards each other, oftentimes apart. Even before Sesshomaru, we were always…” he paused, trying to find a word, waiting for it to materialize in his mind, “We were in orbit. Always circling one another, rarely meeting. We wax and wane, like the phases of the moon. Sometimes there, sometimes not.”

Izayoi listened, desperately wanting to understand.

“What does that mean?”

“It means there’s no love,” he answered honestly, flicking his gaze back to her. Illuminated by the flames, his eyes looked almost orange against the heat, reflecting strangely in the dim light. “There rarely is, in my world. There’s only loyalty. Pride. Devotion. I would die for that woman the same as I would die for you, but that doesn’t mean what she and I have is comparable to us.”

Izayoi tried not to blush. She truly made an effort not to, pulling her gaze away and staring down at the wood burning in flaking embers of red and yellow. But she felt her cheeks warm anyway, her heart beating steadily in her ears. 

“There’s no drifting away from you.” Toga murmured, thoughtful. “She understands that, I think. Or tolerates it. But when we speak of you, she only ever says that I don’t deserve you.”

“Why?” she whispered, watching a thin log snap in the middle and start to crumble into the ashes. A burst of red embers puffed into the air above the fire, scattering like fireflies in the summer. 

“Because I’m an idiot,” he said, soft again. “Or so she says.”

Izayoi bit her lip to hold back the laugh that threatened to bubble up, surprised a little by his honesty. Another question came to mind as her concerns began to fade, mollified by his explanation, and she looked at him again, wanting to know more.

“Why do you talk about me, with her?”

“You…” he paused, pointedly turning his gaze away from her, and Izayoi got the rather sudden impression that he was embarrassed, “...confuse me, sometimes. I’ve sought her counsel in the past.”

“About what?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“That’s no fun,” she taunted, though only gently. Toga tilted his head, expression turned in a playful way that clearly implied he didn’t care what she thought. 

“What else, then?” he prompted instead.

Whatever flighting happiness that she’d had plummeted in her chest at the question, reminding her that there was more to discuss than distant wives. The shift in her mood didn’t go unnoticed, either— Toga looked back to her as he sensed the change and she found herself immediately looking away, not wanting to see his face.

The fire popped softly in front of them, another burnt log snapping under its weight. 

“Takemaru has asked to marry me,” Izayoi confessed, absently pulling her robes tighter over her shoulders. Unable to tear her gaze away from the fire, she focused instead on an oddly interesting piece of wood that had fallen aside. The slightest ember heartbeat pulsed between its burnt cracks, chasing red and orange against the sand and ash packed into the bottom of the hearth. “My father has asked me to consider the proposal.”

“Has he?”

Toga didn’t offer any emotional response to that; he shuttered himself away, reigning his expression into something equally as flat and impassive as his tone. She recognized it as his mask, not needing to look to see it falling into place, knowing it was there just by the sound of his voice. Any other person would simply think he’d lost interest in what they had to say, but she knew him better than that.

“I don’t want to,” she said quickly, not wanting him to withdraw any further. “But I don’t have a choice, really.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.” She drew her knees closer into her side, hooking her hand over her shins to tuck them in. Still unable to look at him, she continued to study that burnt shard of wood. “You know the rumors. I don’t have the luxury of choice, anymore, and if I were to marry anyone… well, he may be the last suitable suitor I get. But…”

Toga leaned forward— she could hear the rustle of his clothing, see him move in her peripherals and put his elbows on his knees, chin bent against one loose fist in thought. If he was offended in the slightest, he didn’t let it show.

“But?” he repeated.

“But you,” she whispered, her voice barely louder than the crackling fire. “And I don’t like the way he looks at me, either. He’s… overwhelming.”

“Elaborate.”

Izayoi sighed, still locked on that piece of charred wood, staring at a shade of coal-black that suddenly seemed too familiar. “It’s his eyes, I think. They’re not kind. They don’t…” she searched for the word, wanting to be understood, “...match. Him, I mean. They don’t match his actions.”

“I see.”

She wondered if he did.

“Then what will you do?” he pressed, though his tone was gentle.

“Deny him. Somehow.” She tried her very best to try and sound confident, but it was difficult. The thought of going against her family’s wishes was daunting, especially considering the fact she knew her father had been very generous with her. It was only a matter of time before his coffers ran dry. “I just have to figure out how.”

Toga cast her a long look, yellow eyes boring into the side of her face, and she finally relented to his scrutiny, turning to meet his gaze. 

“You can’t marry a dead man, can you?” he asked. 

The insinuation was clear. A strange, ominous expression settled over his features as the firelight danced, shifting translucent shadows across his face. Izayoi’s eyes flew wide open and her heart skipped a beat, fluttering against her ribs like a bird trapped in a cage.

“No!” She panicked, turning fully to face him. “Don’t you dare—” 

Then he was laughing, his jest clearly exposed as she flustered in front of him. 

_Oh, you jerk—_ Harmlessly, her fist bounced off his chest where she chastised him. 

“You can’t say things like that.”

“Can’t I?” he wondered, catching her hand by the wrist, gently pressing his thumb into her pulse. “Just say the word and off that bastard goes.”

“No.”

“Pity.”

She frowned and he chuckled again, wrapping his other arm around her and lifting her into his lap, fitting his hips neatly between her legs— and hiking up her kimono scandalously in the process.

“Toga!”

He kept his chin up in a small display of respectfulness; however, considering his actions, it felt rather like satire. Long arms twined around her waist and brought her snugly against his chest, forcing her gaze to his as they sat at eye-level, her smaller form now elevated on his. The only thing that protected her modesty were her outer robes, the ends fluttering down around her legs in a flurry of fabric.

“Listen to me,” he said gently, the soothing timbre of his voice chasing straight through her clothes and into her chest. “If I decide to call you my wife, that’s what you’ll be. There’s no ceremony about it in my world.” One of his thumbs pressed into the small of her back, massaging a soft circle where spine met hips. “But I won’t unless you permit it. You’ve seen the dangers of being called my lover, but my wife?” He pressed his forehead to hers, tangling their bangs. Izayoi swallowed hard, folding her arms behind his neck, supported on the shelf of his shoulders. “It’s a treacherous path. I cannot choose it for you.”

_Treacherous._

She’d been attacked, kidnapped, and nearly raped. Worse than that, almost killed. All over the rumor that they were lovers— a rumor that, until now, had never even been a possibility. 

“It’s not safe for you, either,” she reminded him, thinking of dragons that she could barely imagine. Of So’unga, his own sword, burning his hand black as charcoal. 

“I don’t care.”

“Then why should I?”

He smirked, the hint of an ivory fang glimmering underneath his lips. Still, she couldn’t help feeling that there was something sad hiding somewhere deep beneath his smile. 

“Because you are breakable.”

Izayoi bit her lip, still looking at his, wondering why she didn’t care about her own life anymore. Had she already died in those vines? Was this all a dream? An afterthought before her next life?

“You’ll protect me,” she told him, and it was true.

“Always.”

There was no question in her mind that they were being reckless. Selfish. That she probably didn’t understand the full weight of what she wanted to do, but also, that she had never wanted anything more in her entire life.

“Husband,” she whispered, and then said it again louder, already in love with the sound, “Husband.”

Toga rumbled— that was the only way to describe the sensation, the way his body seemed to roll underneath her touch as he gazed at her, overfull with molten, golden love, radiating a warmth that bled straight down into the lowest part of her core. 

“Wife.”

And so they would be. Husband and wife, wife and husband; a daiyokai and a human, immortal and mortal to a fault. In that moment, Izayoi saw her life reflected in him, a hundred possibilities wrapped up in a thousand more, full of white-haired children bringing life to these dreary halls, playing underneath starry skies. She remembered the ghost of the child from her dreams and his shining eyes, wide like coins, pulling her in and drowning her in love. She wondered if Toga saw the same thing— their future, the unwoven threads of a tapestry they could make together.

There was a flurry of movement, a streak of white reflecting yellow off firelight and then Izayoi was on her back, lying on a pelt of fur that felt very much like a cloud. 

“I lied,” Toga murmured, holding himself over her and dipping low, pressing soft kisses against the sensitive skin along her neck. His knee fit neatly between her legs, only a single stretch away from being pressed firmly against the apex of her thighs. 

“About what?” Izayoi breathed, gusting through her surprise as she reached up and locked her fingers behind his neck, lacing them together. He reached up with her with one hand, untying the cord that held his hair, letting it spill like threads of silver silk all around them, tumbling down his shoulders in a veil of what she imagined was physical moonlight. When she touched him, she was touching the stars. 

“Ceremony.”

The laugh that left her was unexpected and light, but, shockingly, it didn’t startle her. There had been such a wide divide between them for so long that it felt right to fall into each other’s arms, to cast aside their pretenses and just enjoy one another. And she was ready to fall into him, too— to let him fall into her. 

But as his hand dipped lower, skating up the expanse of her bare legs to hook her knee over his hip, exposed by her disheveled skirts, her heart skipped a beat. His claws traced over smooth, untouched skin, and then caught gently against a ridge, skimmed over a scar, and—

Suddenly, everything seemed too much.

“Stop.”

His hand stilled immediately and she flushed, now surprised by her own voice, flooded with guilt and dread all in the same moment as he stared down at her in concern. Her own hand flew to her mouth, but she was too late to catch her protest. 

“Izayoi?”

“It’s— I’m sorry,” she babbled, trying to pull her leg out of his grasp, thoughtlessly tugging her robe shut tighter over her chest. “I’m sorry, the scars— I just— you don’t have to. I know they’re—”

“What are you talking about?” Mercifully, he cut in on her blathering, letting her leg slide out of his hand with ease. He reached up instead to brush her bangs out of her face, gentle and sure. “Calm down, Izayoi.”

Feeling slightly overheated, she shook her head, trying to sit up and away from him.

“I’m sorry.”

The hand on her face moved to catch her shoulder when she tried to twist away, gently pushing her back onto the furs. It wasn’t forceful, however; Toga gracefully tipped to the side afterwards, laying out beside her and propping his head up in his hand. 

“Beloved,” he murmured, his free hand falling across her stomach, keeping him close but still far enough away that she had ample space to breathe, but no means of escape. “It’s all right.”

Izayoi tried to catch her breath, shocked at her own sudden reaction and suddenly feeling deeply ashamed, realizing how she must’ve spoiled the moment. Perhaps Toga didn’t seem upset by it, but she certainly was — this wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, unable to think of anything else to say.

Toga looked down on her, gently thumbing a comforting circle against the fabric of her robes, pressing through to her skin. In that moment, his patience seemed eternal.

“Talk to me.” 

“I’m sorry,” she repeated lamely, but at his gentle, prying look, she managed to find something else to say, though it lacked much exposition. “The scars.”

His brow furrowed a little, drawing tiny wrinkles at the bridge of his nose. 

“Do they hurt?” he wondered, strangely innocent, and all she could do was shake her head.

“They’re ugly,” she whispered finally, so quietly that it was barely a breath. But he heard, just as he’d always heard everything. “I understand if you don’t want to—”

“Quiet,” he cut-in, and, inexplicably, her jaw clicked shut. He didn’t seem angry, but there was something simmering behind his eyes, a sort of frustration that she wasn’t altogether sure about. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What?”

Then he was leaning in again, lips crashing against hers as he silenced all her doubts. There was nothing hesitant about his actions. Everything felt overly hot— desperate and wanting, demanding as he forced her lips open and tried to drink her dry. 

“Scars,” he muttered, pressing a flurry of kissing along her jaw, down her neck, “only show what you’ve survived.”

He was lifting himself up over her again, back into his former position, pinning his knee between her legs and pushing his palms into the pelt on either side of her, letting his mouth travel down the expanse of her throat.

“Don’t be ashamed of them.”

Then he was nudging her hands away from her clothes with his cheek, reaching out to pry the edge of her kimono aside, exposing a mere inch of that winding, tendriled scar that she’d seen in the mirror; the one that had ignited her shame. His lips brushed over it, heavy and soft, a puff of warm air against her skin that made her shiver.

“They’re,” she tried to protest, but he was barely listening, finishing her sentence for her as he pressed a possessive kiss against the ghosts of her wounds. 

“Beautiful.”

And then she was lost, because he never stopped kissing her— never stopped worshipping her scars, her skin, her lips, her body. He kissed her until she was drowning in the sensation, so far gone that there was only desire, budding for the first time in the hollows of her chest and depths in her core, where no one had ever delved before.

“Toga,” she sighed, feeling heavy and weightless all at once, hyper-aware of her own body to an unsettling extent. He thrummed over her touch and under it, a man unwinding in a million silver strands.

“Izayoi,” he groaned, and she longed for him in a new, frightening way. 

Unable to say anything more, her protests long-dead on her tongue, she kissed him instead, tangling her hands in his moonspun hair and tipping her hips up to his, feeling as though she were a puppet drawn on strings, dancing to a song she’d never heard in her life.

But whatever it was, it was right, because he was groaning again.

“My dearest…”

The threads grew tighter, threatened to snap; his hands were everywhere all at once, peeling away her clothes and his, and she found her own hands following suit, tugging desperately at the knot of his obi.

As before, there was nothing more she wanted in the world than him. And, finally, there was nothing stopping her from taking what she wanted.

Somewhere in the darkness of that night, those threads would snap. He would unravel into her, weaving his fate with hers as she burst, falling apart into a tangle of heartstrings that snared him, captured him, and doomed him all at once. For one blissful moment, there was only them: their scars underneath an audience of stars, healing; their love, hidden away in the mansion that would be hers, one day; and their joining, listing forward in a helpless sort of way. If time had been kinder, it would’ve laid down in that moment and stopped, letting them exist forever in peace, but instead it kept rolling forward, relentless, barreling towards the dawn.

But whatever lay ahead, at least they would face it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, everyone, say it with me: **_finally!!!_**
> 
> [Irori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irori) :: Traditional Japanese sunken hearth / floor hearth.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be a lot longer, but I ran into a bit of writer's block. I still wanted to get something out before I started focusing on other things, though, so here this is. I also wanted to put out a few other updates/announcements:
> 
> First and foremost, **this story has been nominated for Best Drama over at[The Feudal Connection](https://feudalconnection.tumblr.com/),** and voting is currently underway. If you've enjoyed this story so far, go ahead and visit their [voting post](https://feudalconnection.tumblr.com/post/633310443461541888/voting-period-now-in-session) and spread some love for this and all the other fanworks for this quarter! Voting closes **November 12th!**
> 
> Second, [@heavenin--hell](https://heavenin--hell.tumblr.com/) and I have started an InuParents Doujinshi called [_Reflections_](https://reflections-doujin.tumblr.com). The whole first chapter is posted in its entirety, so if you like that sort of thing, please go take a look! Hopefully we should be updating weekly (but as with anything, that's subject to change).
> 
> Lastly, my NaNoWriMo goal is to get a full and **completed** InuParents story out before the end of the month, and I'm about halfway through it. _Scars_ will be on the backburner until that's out, but should resume in December. For more info on that story, go ahead and [visit my Tumblr](https://loveyou-x3000.tumblr.com/tagged/wicked%20games%20au/) to follow that craziness. It's a Modern AU with a very NSFW flair...
> 
> Thank you everyone for following along and continuing to love this story!

Glowing, happy and warm, Izayoi nuzzled into her husband’s chest as he raked his fingers down her back. 

“You should sleep,” Toga suggested again, his words rolling through her breast and curling all the way down to her toes. She was laying half on top of him and half on his pelt, draped over his body in a mess of shining black hair and sweat-slicked skin. With her arm folded over his chest, she pointed her chin against one forearm and shuddered as the delicate points of his claws traced up and down her spine, harmless and gentle in their ministrations.

Her answer still hadn’t changed.

“No.”

The corners of his mouth twitched down in clear disapproval, but Izayoi didn’t care. The fire crackled quietly beside them as she lifted up, pulling herself further on top of him to leech more body heat. His hand paused in the hollow of her back when he noticed her chill and he stretched with his other to reach the pile of clothing they’d tossed aside. Rifling through the cottons and silks for only a moment, he soon pulled one free and tossed it over her, blanketing her with his haori and shielding her from any wanton drafts. 

“Stubborn,” he muttered, pressing his palm flat against her back. “You’re tired.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to waste time sleeping.”

He chuckled, a playful shimmer in his eyes. “We have plenty of time yet, little wife.”

Heart blooming with a rush of sudden heat, she blushed and hid her face against his chest, ducking behind the short wall of her own arms. 

“You know what I mean,” she mumbled, shuddering softly as his hand began to travel its lazy path again, tenting the fabric of her blanket as he did. There was silence for a moment longer, but eventually he spoke again.

“So you mean to return home in the morning?”

At the sudden dip in his tone, she peeked up over her arms, a little saddened to hear him sigh. He was looking at the ceiling, head tilted away from her. If she had to guess, he seemed almost petulant, or at the very least disappointed. Now it was her turn to frown, the tiniest pang of guilt tugging her heartstrings.

“I can’t just disappear on my family, Toga,” she whispered, reaching up to brush her fingers along the edge of his jaw. “I’m sorry.”

She knew he wanted her to stay. _She_ wanted to stay. But she couldn’t run away from her problems.

“Don’t apologize.”

He meant it. That did little to comfort her, however, so she sighed, moving again to hold herself up over him. Her breasts pillowed softly against his chest, the silk around her shoulders slipping back a little.

“When it’s safe... Do you want me to come live with you?” she asked.

He tilted his head towards her, sliding his hand up her back to reach around and tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. 

“Yes,” he said, and he meant that, too. 

She caught his hand in one of hers, curling her fingers over his knuckles and twining them between his claws. Bringing his hand around to her lips, she pressed a gentle kiss against his palm.

“Then I will.” It was a promise. “But until then…”

“This place is yours. Ours,” he finished, squeezing her fingers gently. “Whenever you desire.”

She smiled at that, leaning down and stealing a soft kiss while she held his hand between her breasts. He indulged her happily, nuzzling her cheek with his nose when she parted from him.

“Every night?”

“If you like.”

Satisfied that he was content again, Izayoi lay back out across him, tossing her hair to one side with a roll and stretch of her neck. The glow of their union was beginning to wane, leaving her very aware of the slickness between her thighs and the slight soreness within, but it did very little to distract from her contentment. Distantly, she hoped they hadn’t made too much of a mess of his furs. It was a problem for later, though; she was too tired to consider the task of laundry.

Instead, she drifted, listening to the steady sound of Toga’s heartbeat when she lay her head on his chest. But soon, other needs came to mind, pulling her out of her trance. Though she hated herself for it, Izayoi slowly peeled up and away from him, pulling his haori closed over her chest. Mouth dry, she swallowed and quietly looked around to see if there was a kettle anywhere, or perhaps a bucket of water drawn from a well.

“Thirsty?” Toga guessed. Izayoi nodded and started to stand, but before she could find her legs he was pulling her back down, forcing her back into the cloud softness of his furs. “Relax.”

More than happy to comply with that particular order, she nestled back down, stretching like a cat over his pelt as he left her side. Mourning his warmth already, she watched him step into his hakama and secure the ties at his hips with a lazy sort of adoration, resisting the urge to summon him back to bed. 

“I’ll be back,” he promised, casting a glance over his shoulder that lingered a bit longer than it should. It sent a flare of heat rushing to her cheeks, spreading fast down her neck as she looked away from him.

“Go,” she admonished, and he chuckled. Without another word, he departed, venturing out into the night shirtless to fetch her fresh water.

Then, for the first time in a long while, Izayoi was well and truly alone.

In the eerie silence of the mansion, she lay and listened to the crackling of the dying fire, watching the shadows dance across the ceiling. It wasn’t long before the chill crept in and she was sitting up, crawling to her feet to pick a new log from the wood stack near the door. The fire was her only protection against the night without Toga, but luckily it wasn’t hard to get it back to its former glory. In mere moments, red and orange flames jumped to devour the logs she fed them, climbing higher and rolling with new waves of heat.

Kneeling back down on his furs as the warmth chased away the chill, a glimmer caught in the corner of her eye. Toga’s discarded pile of armor was gleaming softly in the firelight, but it wasn’t any of that plating or even So’unga that had drawn her attention— it was a new sword, one she’d never noticed before, leaning haphazardly against the mountain of silver and black metal. There was nothing particularly stunning about it: its hilt was frayed and worn, as if it had seen many years, and the scabbard was dull and scuffed. Among Toga's grandiose belongings it seemed incredibly out of place, but Izayoi realized this wasn’t the first time she’d seen it; she’d caught a glimpse of it on the night of their argument and again when she’d met him in the forest. Both times she'd been too distracted to pay it any mind, but now that she was truly seeing it, she couldn't ignore it. Something about the sight tugged at her heartstrings with a strange insistence, drawing her attention.

It wasn’t the same draw that she’d felt when So’unga had been unleashed. That was the temptation of death, the fog of evil. This sword, whatever it was, wasn’t pitch-black and angry like that one. It was calm. Gold, she thought, or maybe coral. Warm where So’unga was cold; kind instead of evil. When it called to her, she only felt safe. Protected. 

It was _calling_ to her, and—

The door opened.

Toga returned with a pail in one hand and an empty cup and washbasin in the other, sliding the door open with his foot and closing it the same. The sound of the wooden frame tapping shut pulled Izayoi from her trance, turning her gaze away from the sword and over to him.

“Here,” he knelt down next to her, setting down the pail and discarding the washbasin next to it. Filling the cup, he handed it to her without delay. “I figured you might want to wash, too.”

She took the cup eagerly, though she didn’t make a scene of herself as she drank. Her eyes stayed on him as he filled the basin, noticing the washcloth he pulled from his waistband. At first she had an inkling to be offended - who was _he_ to imply she needed to wash after what they’d just done? - but then she realized what he meant as a certain slickness moved between her legs.

“...thank you,” was all she managed to say, feeling a soft flare of embarrassment as he left her side and gave her a brief moment of privacy to tend to her needs.

Then, before the water had a chance to settle after she’d pushed the washbasin away, he was back beside her, laying out alongside the fire and putting his head on her lap. Izayoi blushed in surprise, his hair cool against the bare skin that stretched out under the hem of the haori. 

“Better?” he asked, and she nodded, gently brushing her fingertips through his bangs until they were out of his eyes. It felt strange to see him laying out underneath her like this, but it wasn’t hard to grow fond of the sight. 

“Thank you,” she said again, and he nipped at her fingers when they went to trace his markings. She laughed in surprise, withdrawing her hand. 

“Of course.” Toga settled against her with a smirk, lacing his fingers over his chest and bending one knee, a posed painting of leisure. “So, little wife…”

“So?”

“Admiring my sword?”

Izayoi blushed again - at this rate, her cheeks were going to be permanently flushed - and she looked away from him, refusing to fall victim to his innuendos. He chuckled, apparently finding himself very funny.

_Insufferable man._

“When did you get it?” she asked, letting her hand rest on top of his. Her thumb pressed lightly against the indigo stripe wound about his wrist.

“After I returned you home,” he said softly. Izayoi couldn’t help the light twitch of her fingers, remembering more unpleasant thoughts she’d had about him. “I cannot protect you with So’unga. With Tessaiga, I can.”

_Tessaiga._

Toga sat up from her lap and turned, pulling himself across the space between them until he was leaning over her again, caging her between his arms.

“I had it forged from my own fang,” he was saying, “It can slay a hundred demons in a single swing.”

“A hundred demons?” she wondered. Even as she could feel his breath on her lips, she found herself thinking how impossible that sounded. “Who needs to slay a hundred demons at once?”

Toga smirked, pulling her into him with a wanting sort of admiration in his eyes. 

“Someone who has something to protect.”

———————❖———————

The worst part about her first night as a married woman was having to leave her husband’s side in the morning. 

When the first hint of morning's light dawned, interrupting the inky blackness of the starry sky with unwelcome hues of blue, Toga and Izayoi dressed, however begrudgingly, and left the sanctuary of what was now their home. He had her safely away in her father’s castle before first light broke, the rest of its inhabitants slumbering peacefully as he slipped inside her rooms.

Behind closed shoji, both of them lingered near the threshold, neither wanting to end their first night together. 

But, eventually, one of them had to move, and Toga took it upon himself to shoulder that responsibility. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned from her, attempting to leave, but she caught his wrist in her hand and pulled him back. 

“Izayoi?”

Again, she found herself not wanting to be alone. He’d be back tonight, of course, but someone else was returning today— someone she didn't wish to face alone.

“What should I do?”

The request came out before she could consider the consequences. Drawing Toga into her problems would likely rob her of what little control she had left, but he was her husband now. She wanted his opinion. IT didn't matter that the rest of the world didn't know their secret.

“Hm?”

“About Takemaru.”

Whatever calmness he’d had evaporated, his features falling into a soft frown. Merely speaking Takemaru’s name was offensive. 

“Ah.” Gently, his claws traced back from her temple and into her hair, brushing back her long, windswept locks into something less conspicuous. He was thoughtful, if not slightly annoyed. “You haven’t changed your mind on allowing me to handle it?”

“No killing anyone,” she said, frowning at the dangerous edge in his gaze. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s debatable.”

“ _Toga._ ”

“Well,” he mused, talking over her chastisement. “What avenues do you have, then?”

Her shoulders slumped.

“None.”

It was a simple truth. Perhaps her father was offering her a choice, but it was an empty gesture; her options were _yes_ or _yes_ : yes with eagerness, or yes with resignation. She’d said she would try to deny him, but with a clearer mind that seemed less probable than before.

“Even if I say no...” she shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Father admires Takemaru.”

“And you won’t leave?”

She shook her head, even though it felt like a dagger in her heart. “Not like this.”

Toga fell silent, considering her words. His hand wound around her waist and fell to her lower back, turning her gently as guided her to her bedroll. Kneeling down beside her as she slipped beneath her blankets, he saw that she was comfortable before he spoke. They didn’t have much time before her morning would begin.

“What would stop it?” he asked her. “I am unfamiliar with your marriage customs.”

Izayoi sighed, pushing her hair out from underneath her as she lay her head down.

“ _Besides_ death,” she said pointedly, and she thought she heard him chuckle. “A dispute between families or suitors, maybe. Or if my father did not approve.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but something stopped him. His eyes flicked up to the inner shoji that led into the hallway and he paused, hearing something she could not.

"Toga?”

With a sweep of silver hair, he leaned down and stole a soft kiss. It felt like goodbye.

“Do what is expected of you,” he said softly, speaking in a whisper. “Nothing more. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Toga, wait—”

But he was gone. The shoji leading out into the gardens closed just a brief moment before the ones from the hall opened, marking the beginning of her morning as Sadako shuffled inside.

Izayoi sighed, closing her eyes. Today was going to be a long day.

———————❖———————

Izayoi waited.

And waited.

And waited.

She suffered through breakfast and tried to keep her eyes open through her various responsibilities of the day, both tired and restless as she waited for her father to call on her— or, worse, for Takemaru and his men to return. Toga’s reassurances had only proved to put her more on edge than before, as doing what she was expected to do was exactly what she didn’t want. Accepting Takemaru’s proposal was a dreadful thought. If she was forced to resign herself to this fate, it wouldn’t keep her away from Toga. It would only end in sorrow; be it with her inevitable departure, with bearing children of an uncertain origin, or with being found out. 

She trusted her husband. There was no arguing that. What she didn’t trust was her future with Takemaru. 

As the day dragged on, no man called on her, nor did any arrive. Izayoi tried to distract herself with her koto, but there was no easing her anxieties. They only grew as the nagging possibility of Takemaru’s demise began to overcome her. Maybe Toga hadn’t listened. Maybe he’d decided to take the matter into his own hands and deal with this as demons would. Perhaps Takemaru was gone, destroyed by the blade that could kill a hundred demons in a single swing…

Then hurried footsteps drew her attention away from those terrible, bloody thoughts, and Matsu was coming to herald her end.

“Izayoi-sama, your father wishes to speak with you.”

Gathering herself, her composure, and her dread, Izayoi stood and abandoned her instrument, thinking of nothing else but her husband and she turned to face her fate.

———————❖———————

Lord Mizuno was alone when Izayoi came to attend him. She bowed respectfully before she knelt before him, a comfortable space between them as they occupied the main room where he often met with other lords and peers. Just outside the closed doors, she knew her maid was eavesdropping, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Daughter.”

“Father,” she smiled softly, hiding the trembling of her hands within the many layers of her kimono. It was easy enough to do, but it was harder to keep her expression composed into the calm reverie expected of her.

 _Just do what you're supposed to,_ she reminded herself, fisting her shaking fingers on her knees beneath soft silk. _Whatever’s expected of you. Everything will be fine._

Lord Mizuno returned her smile with a flat one of his own, his expression pulled tight. Before Izayoi could consider his tense nature and let it compound her own fears, he spoke.

“I owe you an apology,” he said simply, though it wasn’t without some strain. She blinked in the face of such a rare confession, her expectations briskly brushed aside as her father stared at her. “Today was supposed to be a happy day for you.”

Fear gripped her heart, unwelcome and sudden. Thoughts of a bloodied samurai crashed over in her full force, her throat growing dry at Lord Mizuno’s solemn gaze. But she couldn’t let herself assume anything, not at this juncture. It could cause a fatal misstep. 

“Father?”

“Setsuna no Takemaru has withdrawn his proposal.”

The world stilled as Izayoi’s heart stuttered. Unable to control herself, her eyes widened in shock, the trembling of her fingers abruptly ceasing as her fists froze white on her knees. Her father must’ve presumed that her shock was purely due to the rejection, and that small mercy wasn’t lost on her. Because where he was likely expecting sorrow and hurt, there was only a sudden, overwhelming wave of relief. They looked much the same in this context.

“I am so sorry, my daughter.”

When her fingers began trembling again, it was merely from the shock. Her mind was turning ever faster, thoughts flying as she tried to piece together the shards of this fractured puzzle.

“Has he returned?” she managed to ask, trying not to sound breathless, “Why? Did I—?”

“It is no one’s fault but my own. Worry not.”

“...I don’t understand.”

“You needn’t,” he insisted, sparking an angry itch of indignation in the back of her mind. Why shouldn’t she understand? Why wasn’t she permitted to know her own fate? But she didn’t let her thoughts show, trying desperately to keep herself properly composed. “Certain things came to light and—”

“I thought he didn’t care,” Izayoi interrupted rudely, but her father’s gaze was forgiving. They both understood what she was referencing: all the rumors that tarnished her reputation, all the whispers and the cruel, stolen glances as she walked the halls. _Tainted. Cursed._

“That's not the issue,” he assured her. “In time, he and I will revisit this discussion. He has not abandoned you.” He said it like it was a comfort, but it only tainted the relief that had washed over her. “But now is not the time to see you wed.”

How ironic. 

Izayoi opened her mouth to speak, to try and learn more, but she realized that she was looking a gift horse in the mouth. So instead she pulled her lips shut, nodding simply and pretending at great, wounding disappointment.

“...as you say, my Lord,” she conceded, bowing her shoulders. Her heart was pounding in her ears.

_Why?_

Perhaps her fears of his untimely death were now assuaged, but that didn't stop the pit in her stomach from forming. Why would he withdraw his proposal? Had something happened while he was away? Had Toga confronted him? Did her father know something he wasn’t saying?

“That is all, Izayoi,” he dismissed, and apologized again. “I am sorry to put you through such uncertainty.”

She muttered some appropriate response, but by the time she was walking out the room she had already forgotten what it was. When she closed the shoji door behind her, Matsu was - wisely - no longer anywhere to be seen and for a moment, Izayoi was blessedly alone. There were no guards, no servants, none of her peers about. In broad daylight, she seemed to have found a small moment of privacy.

So, foolishly, the young noblewoman allowed herself to slump with relief and let the tension tumble straight out of her body, forgoing all her worries for another time. Any other lady would have been devastated— but for a moment, she allowed herself this small victory, relieved that she wouldn’t have to face the prospect of a new husband. For now, the threat of Takemaru no longer loomed over her heart.

What she did not see, however, was Takemaru himself, standing in the shadows of the hall as a lone witness to her display. His grey eyes blackened as he watched her gather herself and stow away her relief, embittered by the thought that his future wife was happy to unburden herself of him.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! I can't thank you enough for your patience with me. I meant to try and get this chapter out in time for Christmas, but the holiday ended up being a bit more depressing than I anticipated - thanks, COVID - so I focused on spending what time I could with family instead of writing.
> 
> So before we get started, here's a few updates of what happened during this short hiatus:
> 
> First off, we won [**Best Drama**](https://feudalconnection.tumblr.com/post/635604512250494976/quarter-4-2020-winners) for the fourth quarter of 2020 at [The Feudal Connection Awards!](https://feudalconnection.tumblr.com) Thank you to everyone who voted and everyone who's supported this story so far, I never would have gotten to this point without you.
> 
> Second, if you somehow missed it, I wrote and published a twelve chapter InuParents story for NaNoWriMo: [Wicked Games!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27703876/chapters/67802809) Click there to read it in its entire glory. That's what I was working on for a majority of this mini hiatus, and after _Scars_ is done, I plan to continue in that AU. 
> 
> Third - and this is more of a general story note - I was originally going to try and keep this story pretty in line with the events and timeline of _Yashahime_ , but since we still haven't been told what went down with the birth of the girls, this may deviate somewhat from that plot. I also won't be updating this story quite as frequently as I used to; expect 1-2 chapters a month at minimum, unlike the almost every-other-day upload schedule I had started this with.
> 
> And that's all I've got! Thank you for reading and be sure to let me know what you thought in the comments! :) And if you want to come visit me or ask me any questions about the story, [come talk to me on Tumblr.](https://loveyou-x3000.tumblr.com/)

Toga swore he had nothing to do with it.

After he’d come to her and spirited her away to their reclaimed mansion, Izayoi had confronted her husband with the question that had been gnawing at her all day: why had Takemaru abandoned his proposal? And what, exactly, did Toga have to do with that?

It had taken some convincing, but in the end Izayoi had no other choice but to believe him when he said he’d had no part in it. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Takemaru. The samurai and his men had already returned to the Castle before he'd taken her home -- a tidbit of information that she was surprised to learn, making her all the more exasperated with him. That hadn't been important enough to mention? But regardless, it meant he hadn't had the slightest opportunity to confront the man even if he wanted to; which he hadn't, so the point was moot.

But it left that question all the more unanswered. 

“What sort of man rescinds a formal proposal?” her husband wondered, as if the universe might have an answer for him. Sitting on the engawa that bordered the dying gardens, Toga leaned against a wooden column and watched her stoke the fires at the irori inside. Izayoi sighed at his musings, kneeling comfortably on his pelt as she warmed her fingers at the flame.

“‘Certain things came to light,’ apparently,” she explained, shaking her head in disbelief. “Father wouldn’t tell me what those were.”

Toga hummed thoughtfully, eyes glistening in the dark. He had nothing to say to that, apparently.

“And you’re _sure_ you had nothing to do with it?” she prodded again. 

He chuckled, turning his gaze towards the night sky. “What little faith you have in me, wife.”

“It’s the easiest answer, _husband._ You can’t blame me.”

“Hm.”

There was silence for a moment, during which Izayoi settled herself on the comfort of his fur, not so differently than she had the night before. The night was calm and peaceful, a gentle breeze sweeping through the room as it passed through the open shoji. 

“...It bothers me, though,” she admitted quietly, dropping her hands into her lap. Toga’s golden gaze flicked back to her. “Does he know?”

“Know about us?”

Izayoi nodded. Toga shrugged, gathering himself and rising to his feet before pacing into the building, joining her at the fireside. All his armor and swords were piled near the door, making him seem so much softer when he reached out to brush her hair out of her face.

“How could he, when we’d hardly been married a few hours?”

It was hardly a comfort. Even so, she leaned into his touch.

“Still.” He could have encountered a demon. Heard a rumor. Or even worse, spotted Toga as he came and left the gardens.

“Still nothing,” he murmured, turning her chin towards him. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment when he leaned down to steal a kiss. “Whatever his reason, whatever he might know… You’re safe.”

She took a deep breath, easily moving when he pulled her into his lap. And then laughing when he lay back, strong hands guiding her to sit forward and straddle his hips, forcing her layered skirts to gather above her knees. His eyes were shining.

“Toga...”

“He’s not worth worrying over,” he insisted, placing his palms on her thighs and squeezing lightly. She tried her best not to blush. “And if you keep worrying, I’ll hunt him down.”

“Don't you dare.”

He chuckled and stroked his hands down her legs, fingers slowly crawling beneath the hems of her kimono before traveling back up. Izayoi tried to pout at the intrusion, annoyed at his continued threats against Takemaru’s life, but failed miserably in doing that— when his claws brushed against a winding scar high on one thigh, she shivered and bit her bottom lip, distracted. Trying to circumvent his intentions, she shuffled out of his grasp and leaned forward, laying across his chest and pinning her elbows on his pecs, tipping her cheek against one hand and poking his face marking with the other. Her legs splayed neatly on top of his. 

“Is that all you want me for, now?” she teased. His lips curled in amusement, the tips of his fangs exposed briefly as his arms settled in the curve of her lower back.

“I’m tired of hearing his name on your lips instead of mine, is all,” he murmured, plainly looking at her mouth. Izayoi blushed scarlet, embarrassed at how easily he made her want to melt. 

“Toga…”

“Yes,” he smiled, and she was lost. “Just like that.”

———————❖———————

For a time after, there was peace.

During her days, Izayoi passed her time as she always had, living the expected life of a young noblewoman, doing everything she could not to garner anyone’s attention. When she passed Takemaru in the halls, they rarely spoke. He never once mentioned their near-engagement, nor did she. He would bow, she would nod her head, and along her way she would go.

There didn’t seem to be a single reason to worry.

At night, Toga would come for her. When the men rotated their shifts and Takemaru turned in for the night, she would be spirited away from her home, taken deep into the forest to the abandoned mansion they called their own. With every day that passed, the decrepit grounds seemed a little less ragged, a little more cared for, as if someone had been working to bring the mansion back to life. The twining vines were managed, the weeds were pruned, and the gardens tended; the empty halls were cleaned and dusted, new doors suddenly opened, and everything was altogether cared for. Izayoi saw none of this maintenance in action, but when the cold winds of winter brought them their first snowfall, Toga walked her through the gardens and helped her spot their mysterious groundskeepers for the first time. Pulling her to a stop as they walked a white-powered bridge over a narrow neck of the pond, he paused and ushered her to crouch down and out of sight, pointing to a withered willow tree.

Playing in the fluttering flurries and prancing through the fresh snow, a small band of foxes enjoyed their night under a silver sky.

_Kitsune._

“Orphans,” Toga explained, whispering so that he didn’t interrupt the playful scene before them. “I offered them safety and board in exchange for service. They keep their den in the roots of that tree.”

Four flame-colored kits rolled and tumbled in the piles of snow, yipping and barking at one another, romping freely in the open gardens. Izayoi held her breath in wonder, fingers tightening around Toga’s arm as they watched the tiny foxes play. And then all at once, they burst into teal-green flame, disappearing in a flash. In their places played four young boys, at a range from perhaps five to thirteen years old, packing snowballs and pelting one another in the face with giggles of glee.

“They’re shy,” he murmured, “And there’s a smaller one, too.”

“A baby?” Izayoi’s whisper puffed in the air in front of her face. Toga’s large hand fell over hers on his arm, protecting it from the cold, and he nodded. 

“Their parents were poached—”

“It’s too cold out here for a baby, Toga. They should come in.”

“—by humans.” he said pointedly, breezing through her interruption. “And their den is plenty warm enough.”

Izayoi’s mouth snapped shut. But Toga shook his head at her worry, squeezing her hand gently.

“They know you won’t hurt them,” he assured her. “But don’t be surprised if they scamper off if you get too close.”

Although somewhat saddened by the idea that the children had any reason at all to be afraid of her, Izayoi understood. Humans could be just as terrifying as any yokai or apparition, given the right motivation. And just as cruel.

After resigning herself to watching them play for a moment more, her husband guided her back up to her feet and pulled his pelt off his back, draping it over her shoulders. At her questioning glance, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close.

“You’re shivering,” he murmured, and she realized she couldn’t feel her fingertips anymore. Feeling as though she should blush - but being a little too cold to do that - she curled her fingers around the edges of his pelt, pulling it up around her cheeks.

“Thank you.”

After they went back inside, Toga broached the topic of having children for the first time.

Winter grew colder and with it, they spent more time huddled together, basking in the firelight and in each other. Izayoi cherished their long nights and early mornings, missing him during the times he would be gone and she had to stay home. He would leave her sometimes for days, other times for weeks, forced to face the challenges that other yokai laid at his feet. Kaoru’s rumors were infectious, inspiring others of his kind to take advantage of what they thought might be his weakness. He was a king among beasts, the Ruler in the West; any demon would be happy to take his titles as their own.

But none did.

Regardless, the challenges never seemed to end, and the rumors only spread quicker. They were so insistent that they even wormed their way into human society, and although the tale was bastardized and the names lost from it, it wasn't long until they found their way to the normal gossips. Izayoi had nearly choked on her evening tea when her maidservant had regaled her with the story of a mysterious demon from a nearby forest taking a human lover.

"What a terrible thing," she had said, and then hurriedly excused herself to waiting for that very demon to spirit her away. There was nothing she could do but that.

Winter went along its dreary path and Izayoi started to forget that the rest of the world existed. She went through her days napping and waiting, yearning for the late-night hours and her husband’s embrace. They made no particular effort towards having children since Izayoi still remained at home, but they didn’t prevent it, either. She wanted desperately to be a mother, to give her husband a son— and Toga seemed delighted by the idea of having a small one running at his heels again, whatever the gender might be.

By the time winter began to dwindle, that sentiment only seemed to grow as their shy groundskeepers grew bolder, occasionally bounding through the halls or openly playing in the gardens when Izayoi was present. They’d yet to speak to her, but she didn’t miss the strange longing in her husband’s eyes as he watched them tussle and chase each other out in the dead gardens, missing bygone times when his firstborn had been small.

She learned more about Sesshomaru over those months. Small, offhanded things he mentioned; short memories he was inclined to share. Toga loved him very much, she thought, but it seemed things were difficult between them. Growing worse as the rumors spread and more enemies mounted. He knew the truth, of course— he had for some time, as had his Mother. But he was far less understanding than she was, and Toga had decided that it was best if they never met. 

Izayoi just tried to be there for him when he spoke of his struggles, and she held his head in her lap and stroked her fingers through his hair when exhaustion finally won out and forced him to sleep. 

Eventually, the snows melted and the flowers in the garden began to bud, filling the grounds with soft pink and purple blossoms. With the coming of spring, Izayoi mourned the long winter nights she had spent with him, but she was happy to be able to go out again during the day, wandering the orchards of her home or her step-mother’s gardens. Sometimes she would wake and there would be a flower on her pillow or a small gift to greet her: clamshell cosmetics, delicate jewelry, or silk paintings he had chosen for her, usually left in apology for not being able to visit. All these she would hide away in her vanity, pressing the small flowers in her journals and stowing them away in the bottoms of her drawers. She hated Toga’s absence, but she loved that he cared enough to leave something for her, no matter how small; even when he was so far gone that Myoga had to leave them on his behalf.

It wasn’t until well into the spring, when the world cusped on the hot, humid heat of summer, that Izayoi was forced to face the first of the many trials that were soon to come.

It came in the form of a late blood. Something that hadn’t been uncommon since she’d become Toga’s wife, admittedly, though she wasn’t altogether sure why. Lacking a cycle was usually an indicator of pregnancy — she knew that much, of course, but a pregnancy never came. Her cycle had simply become strangely irregular, always returning with a vengeance when it was missed. It wasn’t something she ever spoke about, of course; when Sadako questioned her why she wasn’t going about her normal routine, she simply said she didn’t know, and suffered her skepticism until the blood came again.

So she wasn’t overly worried that it was absent this month, either. She was so unworried, in fact, that she couldn’t see her future unraveling plainly before her.

Her second trial came with the first, so closely met that they might’ve been the same. While she was on her way to go to the market with Matsu one sunny afternoon, where swallows flit through the air and thin clouds drifted across a pale blue sky, Takemaru approached her in the courtyard, breaking the uneasy silence that had long since fallen between them.

“My lady,” he said, stopping before her and bowing shortly. “If I might have a moment of your time?” 

It was the first time he’d spoken more than a few words to her since his proposal had been abruptly rescinded. Ignoring the ardent fluttering of her own heart, Izayoi nodded, watching him straighten to stand and wondering how long Matsu would take to save her from this— or, horrifyingly, if Matsu had been a _part_ of this. She wouldn't put it past her. 

“Of course, Takemaru-sama.”

He was dressed in plainclothes with his sword on his hip, hair pulled neatly back. Izayoi presumed he must have just come from the training yard, given the time of day and his general lack of decorum. And while that didn’t necessarily bother her, it was strange of him to approach her so informally.

“I’d like to apologize for my behavior, these past months,” he said, bowing again. “I’ve acted foolishly.”

 _Play dumb,_ her mind cautioned. It was the polite thing to do, after all. But she already knew that this conversation was likely riddled with dangers. Unseen traps, unknown intentions. She needed to take great care in navigating through it. Yes, she could simply accept his apology and hurry herself along - and that would certainly be the safest thing to do - but then she would lose what might be her only opportunity to find an explanation for his bizarre behavior.

Because in that explanation, she might understand just exactly how close she was to the true danger of being found out.

Tempering herself, Izayoi smiled softly and nodded again, folding her hands in front of her. 

“I can’t say I know what you’re referring to, Takemaru-sama,” she admitted, stepping towards him. “Walk with me?”

When he straightened, she was relieved to see her façade was working. Takemaru blinked at her, looking relieved in his own right.

“Uhm, yes,” he nodded, albeit somewhat numbly. “You are far too gracious, my Lady.”

Abandoning all expectations that Matsu would come and save her from this conversation, Izayoi guided them further out into the courtyard, where others might see them walking together. There was safety in an audience. Though she had no absolute need to protect her reputation, she was expected to. And, in the end, she felt more comfortable in his company when there were others about.

“I feel as though I should be the one apologizing,” she began, keeping her eyes ahead as she spoke. “Whatever I've done to offend you, I assure you I didn’t—”

“You’ve done nothing of the sort,” Takemaru insisted quickly. His voice was calm and evenly managed, but there was the slightest edge of nervousness to it. “All the fault rests with me.”

"The fault?" she wondered. When he didn't elaborate, she tried to encourage him to, choosing her words carefully. "I understand what others have said about me, Takemaru-sama. I know what others believe. I would not blame you if... Well." She stopped there, knowing she didn’t need to expand further on the subject. “I know it would be a great burden to have a wife with such a reputation.”

She didn’t like openly addressing that topic. Acknowledging the possibility of becoming his wife, which would, in its way, insinuate she had some interest in the idea. But there was no other way to go about it.

“Izayoi-sama.”

Takemaru stopped walking and she naturally followed suit, turning to him when he called her name. Accosted with the full force of his eyes on her - sharp, dark, and endlessly cascading, swirling with flecks of deep topaz and endless onyx - Izayoi stilled, trying to find inspiration in the thought of her husband. Wanting to keep her expression managed like he always could, without the slightest effort.

“Those rumors have never mattered to me. You must know that.”

“Then what?” she wanted to know, keeping her voice steady. “What transpired in a week that would make you change your mind?”

At this, shame made itself known in his gaze. Takemaru tensed, fists curling at his sides before he forced them lax, eyes downcast as he gathered himself to speak. Izayoi waited. 

"I've insulted you," he surmised. Izayoi shook her head, completely genuine. He hadn't. Not yet, anyway.

"I just want to know why, is all." 

When he looked back at her, he was unreadable. But then all at once, shame crept into his features, distorting his calm expression into something painfully aware of its every mistake. 

"...I suppose I owe you that much, at least," he conceded. With a sigh and a straightening of his shoulders, he began. "I spoke of the matter with your lord father before leaving to handle a matter in a nearby village. A yokai run rampant. I imagined it would be quick work and, perhaps, it would give you the time you needed to consider. But that demon...” he paused, but never once looked away from her, seeming to force himself through the humiliation of this confession. "It spoke your name." 

Her heart fluttered, stuttered, and then began a new pace, quickening in her breast. Izayoi forced her expression to keep still. 

“My name?” she repeated. He nodded.

“It called itself the Emperor of Flowers.” His insinuation was clear, made with a careful tone. Feeling her scars begin to crawl, Izayoi held her arms without realizing it, crossing her hands to either forearm as memories began to bud and bloom. But Kaoru was not an Emperor and her son - the demon that had attacked her - was dead. Toga had killed him, and he had absolutely no reason to lie to her about something like that. "It recognized our banners and said it knew of you."

As Takemaru spoke, realization dawned in the forefront of her mind with an ugly, bloody sort of light: hadn’t Kaoru had two sons?

“It claimed many things,” he was saying. “I was foolish enough to believe they were anything but lies and false visions. And for that, my Lady,” he bowed again, “I will never be able to apologize enough.”

Izayoi felt as though she was outside herself, one part of her torn apart to process everything he had just said and the other trying to focus on the present, on keeping herself from saying something brash or stupid. When she spoke, it was as if someone else were choosing her words.

“Yokai do what they must to survive, Takemaru-sama.”

Kaoru had two sons, she remembered. One she did not favor; the one that had attacked her. Ren. And then there was another. Another that Izayoi didn’t know, but who could have been carrying the rumors Kaoru had spread so quickly. Takemaru _knew._ This whole time, he had known.

And now he thought it wasn’t true.

“I could never blame you,” she heard herself saying, even as she realized the truth of what had been happening over these past months. Takemaru had been trying to catch her in the act. Trying to prove to himself that she was, in fact, the lover of the Inu no Taisho. Even possibly his _wife._ “How could I? You are not alone in falling victim to their designs.”

Izayoi tried to stop thinking. Tried to ignore the crawling of her scars, the winding memories of vines and bloody flower petals, the sinking cold of spiderwebs and black eyes. 

“You are too kind,” he murmured, standing again. And at the gentle look in his eyes, dread stopped her thoughts in an abrupt, lurching halt.

 _Oh no,_ was the only lame thought she could manage as her peace came to an end. 

“Would it be too bold of me to ask you to reconsider my proposal?”

Izayoi didn’t know what inspired her not to falter right then and there. After months of peace and happiness, of little worry and easily said lies, all of it was culminating in one cruel reminder of her reality. Nothing was forever. Everything was temporary. And at the end of the day, her world would always demand for her to sacrifice her entire self, body and soul. No matter who she loved or how she felt.

“Well,” Izayoi swallowed hard, hiding her worry behind a thin smile, “Well, I—”

And then a voice that must’ve been sent from the heavens came cracking across the courtyard.

“Takemaru-sama! Takemaru-sama!”

She had never been more grateful to be interrupted in her entire life. The young boy calling Takemaru’s name ran up to them in a panic, stumbling to a stop before them and bending at the waist, trying to catch his breath.

“My apologies," he murmured quickly, then turned to the boy with a snap and poorly veiled annoyance. "What is it?”

“Yokai,” he managed, stalling the anger that simmered in his superior’s sharp gaze. Panting, he put his palms on his knees and tried to steady himself, clearly struggling to get all the words out between gasps. How far had he run? “The one fr-from before— fighting at the edge of the forest—” 

Izayoi did her very best to remain calm, purposefully sealing her lips shut and making a concentrated effort to keep her brow steady. Folding her hands between her long sleeves, she hid her fidgeting as a thousand more thoughts rushed through her mind. _The yokai from before?_ Hadn’t Matsu said a stable boy had seen Toga, once? 

“Three of them— getting close,” he finally finished. Takemaru tensed, but his expression was only calm when he turned to address her, opening his mouth for what must have been an apology.

And then chaos erupted at that very moment, sparking three things to happen in quick succession. 

First, the ground shook with a deafening crash, distracting them both. Takemaru’s gaze flicked over her shoulder and grew wide in an instant as something behind her snapped, fell, and crumbled; there was a roar that soared over that cacophony, screaming _yokai_ in her mind, and she turned her head to look at what was no doubt coming from them both—

And then Takemaru swept his arm around her and pulled her close, twisting her into his chest and all the way around, shielding her with his body. She could see over his shoulder then, directly towards whatever had descended upon them, but her eyes squeezed themselves shut on instinct, protecting her against a splatter of something warm and stinging that fell on her cheek. All she registered was a flash of sea-green scales against the midday sun; a snapping, hissing sound that made her bones quake and her heart jump into her throat, and then the warm expanse of Takemaru’s body against her chest. His grunt over her shoulder, his hand tightening around the other in the anticipation of pain...

But none came, because when Izayoi opened her eyes, her husband was standing between them and the massive snake demon that loomed over them, clawed hands tightened firmly around two bleeding fangs that were the size of his own body. 

Golden eyes stared down into hers and then that ridiculous man _smirked_ at her— smirked, like his entire torso wasn’t inches away from being bitten off at the waist, and then nodded his head to the side. _Move,_ he commanded without speaking, and Izayoi understood.

“Takemaru-sama!”

Now it was her turn to grab him, tiny fingers clutching his kosode and dragging him aside with entire body weight. He stumbled at first, but went, staring wide-eyed over his shoulder at the demon that had just saved both their lives.

At the demon he absolutely hated.

Toga didn’t once falter as she hurried them both to safety (followed closely by the poor stable boy that had been caught up in the mess), digging his heels into the ground as the massive snake demon coiled its body and tried to yank its head free. Its head was twice his standing height and three times as wide, its fangs matching his height from base to point. His hands seemed dwarfed against their ivory lengths, but he was unmovable despite its massive stature, seemingly unaffected by the emerald venom that dripped from its mouth. Its winding, scaled, sea-glass body thrashed, cracking against the damaged wall it had crashed through before coiling righter in an attempt to gain leverage against Toga’s hold. Restrained as it was, it could not speak.

Just as Takemaru regained his wits and turned out of her grasp, still keeping himself between her and the danger from their spot across the yard, Izayoi saw another flash of silver against the sky.

When she looked up, she was faced with the visage of a young god.

Drifting among the clouds, hanging there in the company of all those things that were so far above humankind, a young man stared down at the scene below. The wind rustled through the veil of his platinum, gleaming hair that hung freely around his lean, white-clad figure, framing a brilliant face that seemed at first too feminine— but as Izayoi looked on him, entranced by his strangeness, by the alabaster smoothness of his skin, she realized that the only beauty in him was macabre. His eyes were burnished gold and incredibly dispassionate, unnervingly cold as he surveyed the field beneath him. On his shoulder a great mound of fur cascaded to his boots, shifting and shining with the breeze, and from underneath it he lifted his arm— cracking his knuckles with a stiffening of his claws, which now glowed misty green in front of his face. Magenta stripes twined around his wrist in the same parallel lines that graced his cheekbones, and in an instant she knew his name, remembering the stories of the boy who bore a crescent moon on his forehead. 

_Sesshomaru._

Before she had enough time to even think about hiding herself behind Takemaru properly, Toga was moving. With a guttural shriek from his opponent, he hauled the creature to one side, twisting himself in the motion and keeping his feet firmly planted where they were— and then swinging back, whipping the snake into the air, throwing him bodily into the sky. And so the creature soared, screaming as it did, writhing in the air to face the yokai it was swiftly coming to meet.

“I WILL MELT YOU TO BONES AND ASH, YOU WHIMPERING—!!”

Izayoi’s stomach bottomed out when Sesshomaru lunged forward, ignoring its taunts, striking his entire arm through the snake’s eye with a squelching noise that reminded her of grasping rotting fruit. The force of its shrieking pain shook tiles from rooftops in a clatter, but then all three yokai disappeared behind the castle walls, moving their fight towards the open plains and orchards. 

Without once thinking about her own well-being and ignoring Takemaru’s startled shout, Izayoi rushed through the courtyard and out the back gates, breaking through the line of guards that had gathered to shove her way out into the field. All their weapons moved into ready positions as she put herself out in the open, their worried mutterings falling to the wayside as she looked out on the battle that was taking place.

Toga stood on the perimeter of the violence, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the gargantuan, bloody-eyed snake face off against his son. A glowing green whip was cracking through the air from the point of the young man’s claws, slashing across the armored scales of the snake before him, sliding off harmlessly. The snake hissed and coiled itself up, rising to strike with a twisted grin.

Izayoi had the thought that perhaps she shouldn’t be putting herself out so clearly in the midst of battle - especially if this encounter had anything at all to do with her, which she imagined it must - but before she could retreat, Toga simply paced to put himself directly between her and the enemy, calling out to his son. One hand fell to his hip, claws resting on the hilt of Tessaiga— and next to it, Izayoi noticed a newer sword, resting innocently beside the other. 

“Finish this, Sesshomaru.” 

Sesshomaru, for his part, simply glared and grit his fangs. The snake opened its mouth either to strike or to speak; but it didn’t matter which, because with a purposeful flick of his wrist, Sesshomaru separated its tongue from the rest of its body in a bloody shower. The forked end of it fell to the grass with a sickly _thud,_ inciting gasps and excitement from some. But from others, like Izayoi, she just felt vaguely sick at the sight and smell of the gore. 

Then he struck, disappearing from one side of the clearing and reappearing next to the snake in an instant, hovering freely in the air next to its head and its open, bleeding mouth. With a single utterance — “Dokkaso.” — there was a sudden rush of emerald green light and mist from his claws, seeping out like a miasma. Sesshomaru plunged his hand into the snake’s gaping maw and hooked up, embedding his claws directly in his skull, bleeding poison straight up into his brain.

The snake thrashed, writhed, and rolled its single eye into the back of its head, trembling as the poison spread out from within. Izayoi watched in vague horror as its skull collapsed underneath its undamaged scales, head deflating like a poorly baked loaf of bread. She had to swallow the urge to be sick when the young yokai suddenly pulled his hand free, spilling melted gore and goo to the ground as its massive body collapsed.

When Sesshomaru’s feet found the ground again, he flicked green-black blood off his hands and looked at his father, waiting for something. Toga simply nodded, stepping forward to inspect his son’s kill— and then Sesshomaru’s icy gaze was able to fall directly on her.

Izayoi’s blood ran cold in her veins.

Sesshomaru did nothing, at first. Perhaps that was what was so unnerving about him: his ability to feel nothing, to say nothing, to mimic the cool dispassion of a statue without any difficulty. As he stared at her for the first time - her, his _step-mother -_ he didn’t make a single indication that he was seeing her at all, or that her presence made any impact on his life.

But then his nose twitched, his eyes narrowed, and Izayoi recognized the unbridled _hate_ seething in his golden gaze. 

She had never been hated before. Not like this. Not without reason. It was startling enough that she barely noticed Takemaru come up beside her, far closer to her than most men would dare, with his hand on his sword as he said her name. Izayoi didn’t hear him over the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. The reality of her other life was making itself loudly known, all of her hopeful ideas that she might one day have some sort of relationship with the people Toga cared about dying a quick, abrupt death.

She was not safe around Sesshomaru.

“Izayoi?”

Sesshomaru’s gaze flicked away from her and she blinked, turning to the sound of her voice. Toga was facing her now, a few steps away from his son, and his expression was equally controlled— but where his son had hate, his eyes only had soft concern.

“Inu no Taisho,” she managed, proud of herself for at least keeping up that tiny bit of the charade.

“Izayoi,” Takemaru said as well, drawing her attention away from the demon. He was staring at her face, eyes wide before they narrowed in grim concern. Both of them could see something she couldn’t.

“What is it?”

“...you can’t feel that, can you?”

_Feel what?_

Struggling to find his meaning, her thoughts stumbled. Izayoi opened her mouth to say she couldn’t feel whatever it was, that she didn’t know what he meant, but Toga interrupted her before she could speak, striding across the field to close the short distance between them.

Sesshomaru turned his back on all of them.

“Don’t move,” her husband ordered.

Izayoi pulled up, startled that he was so brazenly approaching her in front of an audience— and perhaps that was a good thing, because any sensible noblewoman would be frightened by a yokai doing just that. But there was no fear in her heart when he stopped in front of her and took her jaw in hand, only a fluttering of confusion when he tilted her face up and to the side, pointing one cheek fractionally down and the other up. 

“How dare you—”

Toga shot a glare to her protector, effectively killing his protests where they began. 

“Toga?” she whispered, hopefully low enough that Takemaru wouldn’t notice amongst the commotion, but they were both ignoring her. His claws fastened tighter on her face, keeping her from making so much as the slightest twitch.

“Water,” he demanded of Takemaru. Izayoi couldn’t see him like this, but she could imagine how he must’ve tensed, how his dark eyes were probably aflame with anger. Toga’s eyes met his with just as much intensity, his other hand extended out impatiently. “On your hip, man. Unless you’d prefer her skin to melt off?”

Now _that_ frightened her. Confused and suddenly panicked, Izayoi stared up at her husband with a desperate plea for explanation, one of her hands rising to clamp around his wrist.

“Inu no Taisho?” she tried, louder this time, hoping that would be less suspicious. His claws flexed on her cheek, but then he was bringing up a short bamboo flask to her face with the other, gently tipping water from its spout onto her cheek. 

And at the white-hot eruption of pain that followed, she understood.

“A few droplets of venom,” he murmured in way of explanation, keeping his voice deceptively calm as he cleaned her wound. “You’ll need it purified and bandaged.” With a flick of his gaze, he pinned someone near the castle walls with a look. “Fetch a miko and a healer. Now.”

Someone scurried off — or maybe multiple someones, she thought, because there were more footsteps than what belonged to one man — and Izayoi closed her eyes, mentally listing sideways inside her pain. Toga grounded her in it, comfortingly stable as he cleansed venom out of her skin. She didn’t know how long it lasted, but it felt like hours before the water stopped and her cheek went back to being disturbingly numb, his claws loosening from her jaw and eventually drifting away.

She was still holding his wrist when she finally opened her eyes. On instinct, she released it to reach up and inspect the wound herself, but Toga’s hand closed around her forearm in an instant. Her fingers hovered inches from her face. Takemaru stared.

“Don’t,” was all he said. 

After a second’s hesitation, she nodded and let her hand fall. Toga did the same, letting her step back and away from him as any woman might. But there was a hand that came to her back when she did that— Takemaru's, boldly making contact with her, acting as though he could be her support in her time of need. 

He couldn't be, of course. Only one man could. But at least he was being considerate.

“Purified and bandaged,” Toga said again. Izayoi swallowed hard and nodded, feeling a little dizzy. Takemaru’s hand was suddenly more than a passive comfort, tightening around her waist when she started to sway, supporting her where she stood. Toga frowned, but the expression was minute and quickly veiled. Izayoi only saw it because she knew him.

“Take her inside,” he said to the samurai, turning his attention to him. And for once, Takemaru seemed more than happy to obey.

In an instant, Izayoi found herself being moved and guided away, taken swiftly back inside the safety of her family’s castle. But she didn’t miss the way Sesshomaru was glaring at her from over his shoulder when she was turned, standing far back with the corpse of the great snake demon he had slain, his claws dripping with jade venom and ruby droplets of blood.

The gates closed on his haunting glare and her husband’s concern, and then Izayoi was rushed have her wounds properly tended.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!

A familiar rush commenced. People worried, fussed, and handled her, tending to her wounds, worrying over her in every single way they could. By now Izayoi was used to this— she could call it a routine, if she liked, though it wasn’t one she enjoyed.

How many times had she been hurt? How many times had the healers been called? How many times had she seen that strange, worried disappointment from Sadako as she knelt beside her?

Blinking away the tears in her eyes, Izayoi wondered how many scars she would be forced to carry.

Sitting alone in her rooms, having been left to rest, the young noblewoman regarded her own reflection in her mirror, trying to chase off the ghosts that had suddenly shifted out of the shadowed corners of the castle. It had been fine, at first, being fussed over. But because it was routine, because she was so used to being stitched and bandaged back together, the memories of every past occurrence had filtered in through the din of everyone else’s worry.

Staring at her reflection in the immaculate mirror, Gosaku’s ghost stared at her from over her shoulder. _“Little pet,”_ it crooned, eyes black and flinting, and Izayoi shuddered, feeling the whisper of Kaoru’s curling, tressed hair crawled over her body like chains, entrapping her in the web of rumors that refused to cease. Vines slithered along her track-marked scars, shivering beneath skin, reminding her of that fateful day. It had been Ren, nameless and faceless as she’d known him, who’d condemned her to first meeting Toga; who’d gifted her these scars, and with them, the future of meeting his Mother. Kaoru’s cursed, twisted words and forced her to Toga, bonded them in trauma and riled their worlds against them. And with one terrifying, fell swoop, Tsuchigumo and Gosaku both had tangled them into such a mess that they could never hope to be free of one another. 

Not that either of them particularly wanted to be, anymore.

Tipping her head back to try and prevent tears from spilling, Izayoi sniffed and looked at the ceiling. The pain was one thing. With cleaning and purification, the numbness from the venom had passed, and now Izayoi was forced to face the slow tide of agony as it made itself known to her. And though it kept her awake - that, and the knowledge that the venom had liquified her skin nearly down to the bone, leaving her with limited movement on one side of her face - it was the images of her past that bothered her more. 

And she’d been doing so well managing them, as of late.

The nightmares only came when Toga was gone, and even then they were blurry, indistinct things, soothed by the promise that he would soon return. The title of husband held many powers and promises, most of which were comforting enough in his absence. But at the end of the day it was only a word, and a word was an invisible, intangible thing. It could only protect those that respected it and the man that held it— and it seemed that those numbers were dwindling by the day.

But as hollow as a protection as it might be, it comforted her still. It even comforted her now, when the memories rose unbidden, and she tried to force all those specters away with the thought of him alone. She remembered the feeling of his hands on her shoulders, grounding her; of his armor pressed hard against her when they flew; of his eternal patience and the brashness he tried to hide from her. The brutish, loving demands of his hands tried to chase away the horrors of her past. 

And it almost worked, until she remembered the warm sensation of Gosaku’s blood splattering across her face as those hands - those hands that loved her, that cared for her, that were only ever gentle - ripped his head straight from his shoulders, dulling those two terrible eyes forever.

With a great sigh, Izayoi leaned forward and held her forehead tenderly in her palm, letting her shoulders slump. She was _tired._ Everything ached and all she wanted to do was curl up and fall asleep, but her mind and body protested the very thought. Even if she could banish her nightmares, there was still reality to think about, and that was just as unwelcome.. 

_“Would it be too bold of me to ask you to reconsider my proposal?”_

Takemaru.

But luckily, it was just then that a gentle rap was heard at her door, and then her husband was stepping into the room without a moment’s hesitation, breaking through the terrible torture of her thoughts. Still blinking with wet eyes, Izayoi watched him stride over the threshold with the late night moon as his halo, cascading white light all down his silver hair. It was so late, much later than he ever came for her. She had thought he might not come to her at all…

“Toga.”

Her voice was broken and mournful, startling her as much as it seemed to startle him. The shoji slid shut with a quiet _click,_ shuttering out the night’s light as he moved to attend her, gliding down to his knees. Taking her uninjured cheek in hand and letting the other fall to her shoulder, he pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered, “Hush, my love.” 

He had stashed his armor somewhere and, to her surprise, his swords. Or most of them, anyway. The newest one she didn’t recognize was on his hip, the hilt wrapped in harsh, royal fabric, a shade of purple that was rare to see. But that was all the attention she cared to give it. Wanting his support, her fingers crinkled against his ivory kimono and she leaned in to his touch, closing her eyes. But when she took a breath to speak, trying to ignore how her cheek prickled and pinched like someone was stitching her skin with a red-hot needle, he hushed her again. One of his fingers crooked beneath her chin to bring her gaze up to his.

“Don’t speak if it hurts,” he murmured, eyes honey soft for her. “It’s fine.”

Swallowing, she nodded, trying to slip her arms under his so he would embrace her. But again he stopped her, shaking his head.

“Let me see, first.”

She pouted, lips turning down into a gentle frown. But with breathtaking ease, her husband ignored her, gently sliding his hand up from her shoulder, gliding his palm over her neck to cup her jaw and let his thumb skirt the edges of her bandages. She winced and his fingers stilled immediately, a gentle sigh slipping through his lips.

“I can heal it,” he told her gently. “As if it were never there in the first place.” She couldn’t help the skeptical creases that came to her brow, but he didn’t seem offended in the slightest. His other hand fell from her chin. “Trust me.”

She wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of fussing over the wound. Enough of that had transpired for the day. All she wanted was him, to curl up in his warmth and lose herself in his presence for a time, to forget about the terrible world outside her four bedroom walls…

But at the look in his eyes, she relented.

“I do trust you,” she whispered, though it stabbed her face with pain. Shuttering the world out behind her eyelids, she lifted her hand to gently unwind the bandages around her head. Why Toga let her, she wasn’t entirely sure, but at least she was able to take it at her own place, tenderly cradling the last strip of bandage and cloth that kept the herbs pressed against her cheek in place when the rest was unwound. There was a shuffling beside her as she worked, the sliding sound of metal through a slot.

When she opened her eyes, her husband was kneeling at her injured side with his new blade drawn. Tension curled in her shoulders on instinct. Candlelight danced golden across the shimmering, polished silver as he held it loosely aside, giving her no indication of its purpose.

With bandages spilling between her fingers, Izayoi looked up at him, searching for an answer with her expression alone. His gaze was gentle and calm, reassuring in equal silence.

“Tenseiga,” he explained eventually, gently placing his hand over the back of her knuckles. His touch was feather light, adding no additional pressure to her wound. “A blade that heals.”

It was not enough of an explanation.

“How can a—” she began, but he interrupted her smoothly, settling his thumb against the side of her index finger and curling lightly, a silent signal to ready herself for exposing the wound.

“After.” 

Izayoi braced herself, feeling as though this was a task best taken with haste. Toga was certain and sure in front of her, slowly taking command of the situation.

“Are you ready?” he asked. With a short sigh and a gathering of her thoughts, Izayoi nodded.

He didn’t waste a second. One moment her hand was on her face and the next it was not, their fingers intertwined and the bandages falling wayside, exposing her wound mercilessly to the night air. She barely had the time to register the burn of the tender, weeping flesh to the world before a glow caught in the corner of her eye. The blade, Tenseiga, swiftly moved into place at its master’s will, shining with soft light as though the moon itself were caught in the metal, shimmering silver and blue underneath an unnatural sheen. Izayoi wrestled down the urge to cry out when melted, mending muscle was brazenly exposed, flecks of white bone visible in the deepest rivets of the wound, but before she could so much as choke down a moan, a cold settled over her. Like the smoke that wisped from an extinguished candle, her agony evaporated as Toga lifted the broadside of the glowing blade to her cheek and pressed lightly in, cradling the razor-sharp edge of the sword against the curve of her nose. Its needlepoint tip scratched against the crook of her brow bone. But the sensation was only an empathetic pain, like the numb sensation of being pricked when watching a friend stab their thumb during embroidery. This blade only _felt_ as though it were cutting, while in actuality it did nothing of the sort.

A soothing sensation flooded from the flat contact of the cool iron over heated skin, the silver glow of the blade shifting underneath her eye. 

“Do my bidding, Tenseiga,” Toga murmured, and Izayoi felt her hand drift up to the wrist of her husband’s swordarm, fingers curling there and tensing lightly. The soothing sensation rolled into something new, feeling like knitting, or at least the idea of doing so, until it changed again. Sensation transitioned to color, coming to a warm crescendo that crested in white and crashed in waves of sapphire blue, spreading through her entire body. The experience left her buzzing from the tip of her nose to her toes.

Gasping in a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Izayoi blinked as Toga pulled the blade away from her face. When she moved to touch her face, she found only smooth skin there.

“What?”

Her voice was shaking. Toga cocked his head to the side in a particularly canine fashion, admiring his work— and in that, he admired her. 

“A sword of the netherworld,” he said softly, reaching below to hold the scabbard and slide the blade back into place at his hip. “Meant to heal in this world and cut in the next.”

“I,” she began, but found she had no other words to say. Shocked into dumb silence, she stared at the purple hilt of the sword that could not cut. Toga smiled.

“Quite a feat, isn’t it?”

Letting her hand fall to her lap, she twisted to see her reflection in the mirror, searching her face for any evidence of her wound. But there were no scars. Just her wonder and her husband over her shoulder, all their memories and scars between them while she gently touched her cheek, awestruck.

Moving behind her, Toga reached out and fit her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist after pushing her hair away from her neck, kissing there in the hollow where her shoulder curved. Izayoi’s hands fell over his forearms, crossing to hold him close while she tipped her head to the side. She watched his elegant reflection as his lips pressed up higher, glad that all her visions were finally gone.

Eventually, he lifted his head and she tipped hers against his cheek, letting him nuzzle her hair. Breathing deep, she took in the comforting scent of him, reminded of the forest and the dark, soft soil of a rain-swept field.

“I apologize for allowing it to happen in the first place,” he murmured, pulling her in as tightly as he could. Izayoi reveled in his warmth, finally finding comfort. “The battle never should've strayed so close.”

“It’s fine,” she murmured. “No one got hurt.”

The annoyance in his features was audible.

“ _You_ got hurt.”

“I’m not hurt anymore."

“That’s not the point, Izayoi.”

“Was it after me?” she asked, nearly cutting him off. With a tolerable raising of his brow, he rolled his eyes at her dismissal and then shook his head. 

“No. We were sparring when it came upon us. Sesshomaru was,” he paused, lips twisting in a faint grimace, “...less than interested in trying to lure the beast away.”

Izayoi’s brow furrowed as she thought on this, remembering how Sesshomaru had looked at her. But after deciding she’d rather not tread out onto thin ice, she turned to an easier topic.

“It doesn’t matter, I guess,” she dismissed. Twisting her head to press a kiss to his cheek, she suddenly felt restless in her own home. There were better places to be. “Can we go?”

It would be nice to leave all her ghosts behind. But he shook his head again, somewhat regretful.

“The guard doubled for the night. Better not risk being seen." 

She gripped his arms a little tighter, suddenly afraid he might leave her. But he freed himself easily, suddenly sweeping her into his arms and off the ground as he got to his feet.

"Will you stay?" she begged.

He nodded without hesitation. She relaxed immediately, smiling when he lowered her down onto her futon and pulled the pelt from his back to cover her with. She curled her fingers around the fur, nestling close when he lay down next to her.

And then she found herself laughing into his mouth when he gathered her in his arms and captured her lips with his own, making her feel warm and wonderful a thousand times over. Perfect as he was, ethereal and impossible in his ways, she could hardly believe that he was hers. Entirely _hers_. And nothing would change that. Nothing could take him from her; he, who loved her so passionately, who gave her everything and asked for nothing in return. Despite all the faults she'd discovered in him - faults that she was still discovering, as any wife would a new husband - she never denied him. His greed, his passion, his lust, his stubbornness, his ego, his—

A hand pushed within her robes and she abruptly lost track of her thoughts, gasping at the hungry kneading of her tender breast. Whatever his imperfections were, they only made her love him all the more, anyway. In new ways. In painful ways, even. It didn't matter what they were.

When he buried his face in the crook of her neck and breathed in deep, she reached down to pull apart his obi, feeling weightless in a strange way. Maybe it was Tenseiga’s effect, but not even the healing sword had taken away the aches that had settled into her bones over the last week— that, she supposed, was an ache only her husband could relieve her from.

But instead of being encouraged by her acts, she felt him still over her, his nose skirting over her collarbone. Startled, she tried to pull away, only to have him slip one hand around her back and haul her in even closer.

“Toga?”

He was breathing deep. Vaguely concerned, she laced her fingers in his hair, the other hand stilling over the washboard of his abdomen. 

“Husband?” she tried.

Toga pulled his face away from her skin and turned to see her, eyes glistening strangely against the orange candlelight. For a brief moment, he was entirely unreadable. She searched his expression for any tilt, for any crease or clue, but found none, reminded instead of their first nights together when she’d still been learning who he was, prying him for answers during their midnight meetings. She hadn't known how to read him then, how to track the minute changes in his expressions that spoke more than he ever would.

“Little wife,” he replied smoothly. 

Izayoi tucked a stray strand of his hair back over his ear, brushing her fingertips along the indigo stripe on his cheek. She held her breath, softening at the pet name.

“Is everything all right?”

Then, as though dawn had broken, he smiled.

“Yes,” he whispered, and then he was over her again, kissing her, making her forget that strange second had ever existed. “Everything is _quite_ all right.”

When he proceeded to take her in her own bed, he did so like a man obsessed, leaving no part of her untouched, no inch undiscovered. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought he’d entirely forgotten that they were in her home, surrounded by those who absolutely could _not_ overhear them. But perhaps that was what had overtaken him, she thought: the risk of being caught, the act of claiming her around those who thought they owned her. Izayoi had to bite down on her own knuckle to stifle herself, bliss constantly brought over her, once by his mouth and again by his hand, until her legs were trembling and boneless. With a smooth movement, he hauled her ankles over his shoulders and angled her hips, entering her swiftly, plumbing her deep in their position. Ecstasy came to her again in their joining, and when Toga found his own release, sputtering and tight, he shoved his thumb in her mouth and let her bite there to silence her moans with his own. Spent and sweat-slicked, they fell into a tangle together, his hunger still plain in his eyes when she dared to look.

Oh, how she adored him.

Toga kissed her breathless in their afterglow until Izayoi forced herself free, feeling as though she would never regain the use of her legs. Sitting up, clutching his furs to her chest, she lay out over him to quash that despairing look in his eyes, thinking him melodramatic.

“I love you, Izayoi,” he panted, unprompted. Izayoi felt his heart beat steadily beneath her palms, a heavy rhythm thundering with the weight of a thousand lifetimes. In it, she knew her own life lay.

“Oh, my dearest,” she whispered, peppering his cheek with a few chaste kisses that made him rumble beneath her breast. He wrapped his arms tight about her. “I love you, too.”

———————❖———————

It took her an entire half-cycle of the moon to realize why her husband had ravished her so passionately that night.

The morning after their exhausting union, she’d woken to find a white gardenia left on the pillow next to her, both a gift and an unspoken apology for leaving before she’d woken. Izayoi had forgiven him immediately, of course, and pressed the flower away with the others in an otherwise unused journal, gathering her discarded bandages after she was done. Knowing she couldn’t explain away her sudden lack of injury, she simply proceeded to spend the next few days wearing a useless bandage, allowing the healers to declare her healing a miracle when they made to change the dressings. A claim not so entirely off the mark, she supposed; what Toga had done was a miracle, after all. That a young miko would take all the credit bothered neither of them in the slightest.

Toga had returned only once since. It had been a bittersweet meeting, however; he’d had to kiss her goodbye with a promise to return in a few weeks’ time, though he admitted he didn’t know how long it would be. Myoga would stay with her in the meantime.

Myoga, who, to her great relief, mostly slept and made himself unseen. It wasn’t that his company was particularly unpleasant— it was quite the opposite, in fact, full of insights into his Lord’s duties and interesting tidbits about their long lives, but she wasn’t feeling incredibly up to entertaining anyone since Toga had departed. Food disinterested her and her mornings were sluggish and slow, only kept along their pace by Sadako’s impatient guidance. Her body ached in strange ways at all hours of the day, and nothing she could eat or drink gave her any relief. 

Then one morning the nausea came and never left.

For an entire week, she tried to suffer her pains in silence. But she couldn’t hide her illnesses from her maids, nor Sadako herself, and soon word of her sickness spread, despite Matsu’s best efforts to quell the rumors. Her step-mother worried and her father called for any medicines that might help, but nothing ever did. The only pleasant thing about it was that it kept Takemaru at a great distance from her, his proposal stalled yet again.

The sickness proceeded stubbornly. It grew to a point where Sadako was forced to dismiss all the other maids one early morning so that she might speak to Izayoi alone, kneeling at her bedside while the young woman tried to will her stomach to calm. Myoga was somewhere nearby, but well out of sight.

“Izayoi, child.“

She sighed, wiping the thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. “It will pass, Sadako,” she murmured, as she had multiple times over the past week. “I just need to rest.”

“Indeed, it will pass,” she agreed grimly, folding her hands on her knees. Sadako’s gaze was reserved and cool. “But rest is not the cure.”

Too tired to care about the edge in her nursemaid’s voice, Izayoi only sighed and dismissed the idea, kneading the crease in her brow.

“Well, I’ve nothing else to turn to."

"You foolish girl."

Izayoi flinched at the tone. Were she not currently ill, she was certain she would have been rapped across the head. But as she was currently pained enough, it seemed she'd been spared for whatever transgression she'd made. Annoyed and out of sorts, she simply leveled her companion with a stern, indignant glare, not knowing why she was being chastised.

What stared back at her was the sort of angry disappointment that could shatter the souls of grown men.

“I should have kept a better eye on you,” she huffed, gathering her skirts and standing, With a shake of her head, all her anger dissipated into regret, as though Sadako herself had done something terrible. Izayoi could only look on in bewilderment. “May the Gods have mercy on you.”

“Sadako?”

Only able to prop herself up on one elbow, Izayoi watched Sadako swiftly leave, the door shutting behind her with a rack. She sighed, tipping her head back and rubbing her cheek. Lightheaded and nursing a gentle fever, she couldn’t comprehend how she’d offended her by being ill. It was hardly her fault.

“M’lady?”

Blinking up at the rafters, she watched her lord’s vassal hop down from the ceiling and land with a bounce on the floors. Myoga approached her carefully, giving her the distinct impression he thought she was fragile. It was vaguely annoying, but she was used to being regarded in such a manner.

“Myoga-sama,” she answered in turn, letting herself fall back into the cushions. The little flea hopped up and settled on a hill made in her pillow, folding his arms in his sleeves. She watched him with bleary interest, sighing at the sight of the yellow light that filtered through the garden shoji behind him. It made her eyes ache.

“Did the Inu no Taisho, perhaps, tell you his reasoning for leaving me behind?”

Izayoi thought he seemed a little unsure, pointed mouth tilted and eyes averted like he was hesitant to speak. In her comings and goings from the mansion, she had gotten to know both Myoga and Saya fairly well, though they were always careful around her. That much was expected from any male vassal of her lord husband, she supposed, but it was entirely unnecessary for a multitude of reasons. 

“I suppose he told you?” she ventured, recognizing his nervousness. It made him startle for absolutely no reason at all, tensing and jolting where he sat.

“Well, uhm,” he started, and then failed. Izayoi pursed her lips. “Perhaps, m'lady, it could be possible, that, uhm—”

“Myoga-sama,” she admonished. He twitched again. “Please.”

He shifted where he sat, and then gave a sigh that seemed far too large for his tiny stature.

“M’lord may have suspected that you might be, erm… be with child,” he said with incredible care, eyes discernibly downcast. Izayoi blinked. “Considering that he was called away to war, he thought it best if I were near so that I might fetch him right away if-if something— if something were to—” 

When she sat up, Myoga gave a verbal stumble, somersaulting into a babble that meant nothing. One hand flew to her stomach, the cause of her illness suddenly painstakingly clear, but his words caused a battle for attention between the two statements: she could be with child, but also— _Toga was at war._

“To war?” she repeated, the worry for her husband overwhelming the numbness that seized her fingers, which were spread faintly over her flat stomach, searching for any evidence of a swell. She could be _pregnant._ “What do you mean, to war?!”

Luckily, she was able to keep her voice to a hiss, swallowing both the urge to vomit or scream in the same moment. Her stomach rolled and flipped somewhere near her heart.

Myoga, understandably, panicked. “It is a war already fought, Izayoi-sama!” he insisted, suddenly hopping up and down on the pillow, arms flailing. “Please, do not worry! The threat of the Hyōnekozoku has been put down! Word that their King has fallen has already spread—I am most certain the danger has passed, you mustn't fret!” 

“Hyoneko—” She swallowed hard, unfamiliar with the name and what it truly meant. What she whispered next was meant only for herself. “He went to war without telling me.”

But Myoga answered anyway.

“He only meant to keep you from worrying, m’lady! None could defeat him in battle!" 

It was a weak excuse and did absolutely nothing to calm her. Izayoi wasn’t sure if she wanted to strangle her husband or gather him up in her arms and cry.

“Worrying,” she repeated numbly. Mind in a jumbled mess, she tried to track her courses while simultaneously worrying about war, and was able to find visions of blood in one and not the other.

Were this just another late cycle, it should have come to her by now. But it hadn’t, and now she was sore all over, tender in her breasts and sick in the mornings, turning away food one moment and consuming everything presented to her in the next. She could be desperately lonely and incredibly content all within the span of an hour, moods swinging unpredictably. 

“I think,” she said, feeling her stomach bottom out as she remembered Sadako’s disappointed stare. She _knew_. “I think…”

“Shall I go to him, m’lady?” 

She nodded at his helpful suggestion, feeling her throat suddenly go dry.

“Please," she whispered. "Bring him back to me."

———————❖———————

Izayoi shuttered out all her emotions to survive the rest of that day. Myoga guessed he would reach Toga by noontime, which meant she had until nightfall to prepare herself for his arrival, so long as his duties didn't prevent him from leaving his wargames. By now the only matter left would be dealing with straggling soldiers, Myoga had assured her, which was a task that a lord general had no reason to attend to personally. Attending his wife would certainly be much more important than that.

So Izayoi set about her day with clinical precision. She had herself dressed, ignoring Sadako's knowing glances and Matsu's averted eyes as they draped her in silks, and then enjoyed a morning meal with her father and step-mother, forcing herself to stomach to comply. She made a point to enjoy their company and spend time speaking with them, deciding to commit them to memory as they were now, oblivious and kind, unaware of the baby within her.

Of that child, she shuttered most thoughts out as well, focusing only on the bitter truth: if she stayed, it would be assumed that she and Takemaru - at best - had entangled themselves in a scandalous affair, and that the child would be his. Though he would know the lie, of course, it would present him with an opportunity. He could reject her and ruin her further, leaving her to the whims of her father, or he could use the baby to coax her into the marriage he desired, knowing all the while it wasn't truly his, but accepting it nonetheless.

But when she inevitably birthed a half-demon child into this world, he would try to rid her of the burden, destroying any hope for a happy life. It was a crime that Toga would cut him down for, and Izayoi would ruin her family more on that path than she would on this one.

She had no choice but to leave.

So she spent her time with the people she loved while she could. In the hot hours of the summer afternoon when most lounged, she excused herself to her rooms, complaining of the heat. Knowing all her things would eventually be searched when she didn't return, she gathered up all her journals and trinkets, tucking those diaries and baubles into her long sleeves. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to know the truth of her relationship with Toga. Her father would be heartbroken, and Takemaru no doubt furious at the prospect if he came to know.

Because the demon he had encountered had spoken true, and he'd fallen for her deceptions anyway.

It was better if they thought she was permanently gone. Dead, maybe. Left with the comforting memories of the woman they thought she was.

Stowing the last of the things she wanted to keep in her sleeves, leaving her vanity and its drawers mostly bare, Izayoi picked up the bone-white kanzashi that remained on the smooth wood top, carefully turning it over in her hands. Brushing her thumb over the crescent moon carved into its base, she forced her mind not to wander, already feeling the beginnings of apprehension settling in.

This was what she wanted. Since they'd first called each other husband and wife, she'd wanted to live with him, to join him in his life properly, and yet the prospect of it now seemed troubling. The timing of it was terrible. The future loomed over her, expansive and unknown.

But there would never be a good time, would there? Yokai would always see her as a weakness and her family would always see him as a danger. It was a scandal no matter how it came to light, and they would both be despised for it.

This was the path she had chosen, and it was time for her to walk it. 

Outside her door, she heard Matsu call her name. Pulling the kanzashi into her silks with all her other secrets, she beckoned her to come with a simple, "Enter."

But when the door opened, it came with the clattering of a dropped platter and breaking ceramic, her young handmaiden given a terrible fright by something unseen. Izayoi jolted as well, turning fast to see the source of it—

And found her husband standing at the threshold, completely unbothered by the startled maid or the sun that blazed brilliantly in the blue sky.

_Toga._

Words failed her. But she didn't need them when he strode across her room, still wearing his muddy boots, covered with the flecks and streaks of grime from battle. Extending a dirty hand, he helped her to her feet. In contrast to the blood staining his claws and armor, his actions seemed impossibly gentle.

"Are you well?" he wondered. 

Catching her breath, Izayoi managed to shake her head. Toga hummed thoughtfully, ignoring the plain sound of many footsteps drawing near. He had been seen coming to her, she realized— he must have rushed straight to her side to arrive before sunset.

Heart aching, she squeezed his hand.

"Take me away from here," she said softly, knowing there was no other choice. Moving with him when he pulled her near, she felt suddenly more aware of her own body than she was of the gore on his. Of his child in her belly. Her fingers curled around the ridge of his armor as he fit her against his side, sheltering her in his warmth. 

“Take me home, Toga.”

So he did.


End file.
